


Three Is Not A Crowd

by BleedingInk



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, CW: Stalking, CW: Suicide Mention, Endgame Meanstiel, Established Relationship, Love Triangle to Polyamory, Love Triangles, Multi, Past Megstiel, Past Relationship(s), Polyamory, Slow Burn, Writer!Castiel, bartender!Dean Winchester, established Destiel, meanstiel, nurse!Meg Masters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-23
Updated: 2016-03-04
Packaged: 2018-05-03 01:33:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 31
Words: 96,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5271560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BleedingInk/pseuds/BleedingInk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Aftre three years of dating, Dean and Castiel are deeply in love and have a good thing going. So Castiel really thinks there's no reason for Dean to be nervous when his high school sweetheart, Meg Masters, comes back to town all of the sudden and he decides to rekindle their friendship. Except that maybe Meg still has a tiny thing for him, and maybe Dean is aware of that, and maybe things get a little awkward between the three. But Castiel is decided to balance his relationship with Dean and his friendship with Meg. Somehow.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The New Regular

The evening at the Roadhouse was in full swing when she walked in.

Dean spotted her from behind the counter. She was wearing a violet leather jacket on top of her hospital scrubs and the bun she had tied her dark hair in was falling apart. She stalked towards a stool with confidence, but the way her shoulders sank and the sigh she gave out were anything but.

“Tough day at work?” Dean asked. The nurse looked at him with an eyebrow raised. “Well, don’t worry. I’m sure we have something to help you with that.”

“That’s what I’m here for,” she said in a husky whisper. “Let’s start with a beer.”

Dean put a bottle in front of her and went on to serve and chat with the other patrons. Every once in a while, he glanced at her: she was sitting in silence, drinking slowly, like she wanted to make sure every single drop of alcohol reached her brain before taking the next sip. She was wearing red lipstick that made her lips seem full and at some point, she had finally untied her hair and let it fall over her shoulders in big, messy curls.

She was not bad to look at.

In another occasion, Dean would have tried to strike up a conversation with her, ask where she came from, why was she there and just be a good bartender and lend an ear to his patrons sorrow. Years before, he might have even tried flirting with her.

But nowadays Dean was a taken man. Besides, Nurse Masters (Dean picked up her name from the tag in her scrubs when he went to serve her a second beer) had a tired and almost irritated expression that worked as a “fuck off” neon sign to anyone who knew how to get a clue.

Unfortunately, sometimes at the Roadhouse there were dudes who didn’t know, or that they outright ignore it when they saw one. It wasn’t long before a guy with a sleazy smile was sat next to her.

“So you come here a lot?” he asked her.

“Not interested,” Nurse Masters groaned.

“What? I wasn’t even flirting with you!” the guy said, offended. “I was just trying to make friendly conversation.”

“Well, I’m not interested in that either,” she replied, and took a chug of her beer like she expected the guy to vanish into thin air and leave her alone.

But he wasn’t going to give up all that easily.

“Listen, lady, you don’t know me,” he said. “I am a decent man…”

“Oh, God, here it comes,” Nurse Masters muttered under her breath.

“… you don’t know a thing about me. So you really have no reason to turn me down before even speaking a word to me.”

“Yes, I do: I don’t want to talk to you,” she said, with the most artfully executed eye roll Dean had ever seen, and he had grown up with Sam Winchester, Master of the Bitch Face. “Go away.”

It couldn’t have been clearer if she’d actually had a neon sign, but the guy wasn’t budging.

“You’re being really mean for no reason,” he kept going. Masters continued to ignore him apart from looking up at the ceiling like she was exasperatedly waiting for the Divine Providence to strike the guy down with a lightning. “Hey, look at me! I’m talking to you!”

Dean was ready to intervene at this point, but what followed made it pretty clear that the nurse didn’t need anyone to intercede on her favor.

The guy put a hand on her shoulder to force her to turn around, but she promptly grabbed one of his fingers and bent it backwards until it snapped. The man started screaming in pain, looking at his mangled index finger with disbelief.

“You bitch!” he shouted. “You crazy, psycho bitch…!”

“Been called worse,” Nurse Masters shrugged.

Trying not to smile at that turned of events, Dean approached them.

“Is there a problem here?” he asked. “Why are you shouting?”

“Why am I…? Look at what she did to me!” the guy shouted, waving his hand in front of Dean. His finger was hanging in a grotesque angle. “She… she… she broke it! You saw what happened!”

“Sorry, dude, can’t really say I did,” Dean shrugged.

“Yes, you did!” the guy insisted. “Call an ambulance! The police! I want to present charges for assault!”

Dean looked at Nurse Masters, who continued drinking with an indifferent expression. He got the impression the guy’s pain-fueled, empty threats meant less to her than the buzzing of a mosquito.

“Alright, sure, I could do that,” Dean said. “But you know, I think Sheriff Mills’ on duty tonight. And if I were to tell her what I _really_ saw, trust me, your finger’s not the only thing that’s gonna end up broken.”

The guy looked at Dean with his mouth hanging open, as if he thought that just because they were both men the bartender had some sort of moral obligation to take his side. Dean shrugged again, and the guy proceeded to storm out of the bar screaming at the top of his lungs. The other patrons just stared at him all the way, obviously amused, and some of them even chuckled a little.

“What a baby,” Nurse Masters snickered.

“What an overgrown, stupid baby,” Dean agreed and picked up the empty bottle. “Want another one?”

“Nah, I have to drive,” she said, standing up. “How much I owe you?”

“Oh, no,” Dean said. “On the house. Just because the number you did on him was awesome.”

Nurse Masters smiled, obviously flattered.

“You know, I think you’ve just got yourself a new regular.”

 

* * *

 

She kept her word. Every other night, she would drop by the bar to have a couple of beers and chat with Dean. He found out her name was Meg and she had just started working at the local hospital, specifically, in the psychiatric wing (Dean didn’t even know they had one of those). Hence, the scrubs she wore sometimes.

In just a few weeks, Dean had discovered that when she showed up in jeans and heels, it was a good night and she would talk and tip generously. But when she showed up still in her uniform, that was because she’d had a bad enough night that she hadn’t even bothered to change after her shift was over. That meant she would most likely preferred to be left to her drinks and her thoughts, and if someone even thought about bothering her, well… the story of the broken finger had spread fast.

“So why Sioux Falls?” he asked on one of her good nights. “I mean, this is not the kind of place someone would just move to.”

“I don’t know, it’s nice,” Meg shrugged. “And it is only a few hours’ drive from Mount Rushmore.”

“You know I’ve been living here for ages and I’ve never visited the damn thing?” Dean said. “Don’t even have a postcard or a photoshopped picture.”

Meg laughed and took a swig of her beer.

“I went to high school here,” she told him. “For about a year. My dad was a bit of a drifter, so we moved around a lot. But I have some really good memories of this place.”

“Ah, so… nostalgia for the past?”

“There was a boy,” Meg clarified. “Go ahead, say it’s ridiculous.”

“I wouldn’t dare,” Dean said, although he did smile. It was funny that under her tough exterior, Meg would actually have such a romantic reason to come back to that town.

“But you’re thinking it,” she guessed, shaking her head.

She sipped her beer, pensively. Dean didn’t pressure her to keep telling the story, and in fact, it took a couple of more nights to get to the gist of it.

“The thing is, I hadn’t met many decent boys before I met him,” she told him. “And I didn’t meet many after him.”

“Must have been a very special guy.”

“I used to joke and tell him he was a unicorn,” Meg giggled. “As time goes by, I’m starting to think he actually _was_.”

Dean laughed with her and opened another beer bottle.

“Where do you think this rare creature is now?” he asked.

“Probably not here,” she admitted. “I bet he has a nice house with a picket white fence somewhere and is enjoying an apple pie life with his wife and two point five children. And a dog, most likely.”

“Have you tried locating him?”

“Nah,” Meg shook her head. “It’d taint the past.”

She said it so bluntly that it sounded to Dean like a conclusion she had reached after much deliberation, so he didn’t insist. Beside, his cellphone was vibrating like crazy in his jeans’ pocket.

“Yeah?” he said, picking up. The disappointment on voice on the other end sent a shiver down his spine:

“You forgot, didn’t you?”

“No!” Dean said, defensively, frantically trying to remember what he had forgotten. “I didn’t! It just… it must have slipped my mind…”

“Doesn’t matter,” the voice at the other end sighed. “I’m picking you up in fifteen minutes.”

“Yeah, I don’t know how that is going to sit with Ellen…”

“Well, it would’ve been much easier if you had remembered to ask her to give you the night free.”

Dean grimaced. He still couldn’t remember what he had forgotten, though, so he didn’t argue.

“Okay, I’ll see you then,” he said, defeated. “I lo…”

The sound of the call ending indicated him that he was in a bigger trouble than he figured.

“Problems with the miss?” Meg asked, mockingly.

“Oh, yeah, _he_ gets cranky like that sometimes.”

After three years of dating another man, Dean was still not always sure how people would react upon finding out. He had received all sort of answers, from the openly disgusted (“It’s unnatural! It’s against God’s law!”) to the barely repressed gesture of contempt (“Oh, well, that’s… okay.”) to the well-meaning but it’s still sort of offensive support (“Well, there’s… there’s nothing wrong with that, I guess. I just… you were always such a ladies man. It’s a bit weird, but if it makes you happy…”). He had developed a sort of radar for homophobic assholes, and though it still failed him sometimes, he had the impression Meg wouldn’t be one.

Indeed, the nurse openly laughed at him.

“Whipped!” she mocked him,

Exactly like a friend would if his boyfriend had been a girl. Dean smiled. He liked Meg.

He apologized and went to beg his boss to let him leave early, and although Ellen was definitely not happy about it, she must have noticed the despair in Dean’s tone, because in the end she agreed with a groan.

“Fine,” she said. “But you’re making it up to me next week.”

“Absolutely, yes,” Dean nodded, knowing perfectly well next week he would have to submit himself to all sorts of humiliating tasks.

He returned to the counter, were Meg was standing up and putting on her jacket.

“Leaving already?”

“Well, yeah,” she said. “It’s not like I’m gonna be able to keep enjoying the pleasure of your company once your ball and chain gets here.”

“Let me walk you to your car,” he offered.

The night outside was chilly, but still pleasant. Dean breathed in deeply, mentally preparing himself for the argument he was sure would ensue once his boyfriend got there.

“So how long have you been with this guy?” Meg asked.

“Three years,” Dean told her. “But we met in college and were friends for a long time before that, so…”

“Feels like a lifetime, huh?” she said.

Dean laughed. Because yes, sometimes it did, but he was not about to express those feelings out loud when he knew he was about to be hit with all the force of Castiel’s fury. He had to keep in mind how much he loved him and all that jazz.

“Still, I think it’s rather impressive,” Meg said. “Being with someone for that long. I can even keep a plant alive for six months.”

Dean’s laughter froze in his throat when he heard the distinctive sound of his car’s motor coming down the street. He breathed in deeply as the Impala stopped right behind Meg’s car.

“Here it comes,” he said, bracing himself.

Indeed, when Castiel got out of the car, his blue eyes were sparkling with rage and there was probably and angry and sassy remark about Dean’s forgetfulness about to roll out of his tongue. However he had not taken two steps in their direction when he suddenly stopped. The expression on his face mutated from mild irritation to confused surprise. Dean didn’t know what sparked the change, but he decided to take advantage of the silence.

“Look, baby, I’m sorry I forgot,” he said, even though he still wasn’t quite sure what he had forgotten. “I’ll make it up to you, I promise…”

It took him a second or two to realize exactly no one was paying attention to him and his pathetic apology. Castiel was staring directly at Meg, and she was staring back, unblinking. At first, Dean thought it was weird, but then, slowly, the realization dawned on him.

“You… you two know each other?”

They still didn’t hear him. After another moment, Meg took a step towards Dean’s boyfriend and said:

“Clarence?”


	2. The Old Girlfriend

When Castiel was sixteen years old, he was paired up with the newly transferred girl on an English class. She wore thick, black eyeliner, combat boots and chains over her jeans. Her hair was bleached blonde with dark roots she didn’t care to fix. She was pretty in a very intimidating way, and Castiel was just a nerd who had been too nervous to protest when she’d suggested they meet up in his house to do the work.

However, he did find it in him to protest when she lit a cigarette and let the ashes fall on his mother’s carpet, just because he knew whatever Meg did to him would be nothing compared to his mother’s rage.

“Excuse me, you can’t smoke here,” he’d said, looking at her with what he hoped was a very serious expression.

“Says who?” she’d replied, taking a long drag.

“Says I, and this is my house,” he’d replied.

She’d stared at him in stunned silence for a moment. Castiel had cringed, certain she was going to yell at him or throw something at his head. But in the end, she simply had smiled and put off the cigarette against the sole of her boot.

“Happy?” she’d asked.

“Yes, very,” he’d said, hoping his voice sounded firmer than he felt it.

“Well, let’s talk about this Heminguy, then.”

“Hemingway,” Castiel had corrected.

“Yeah, whatever,” Meg had rolled her eyes.

From that moment, Castiel was convinced he’d had to carry the weight of most of the work, but Meg had actually contributed and even bought a small plastic folder for them to put it in. They got an A minus, and the way she’d tried not to smile when Castiel had told her, standing next to her locker, was amazingly adorable.

“We could have got an A plus,” Castiel complained.

“Are you kidding me? I can’t remember the last time I got an A on anything,” Meg replied. “This is so cool, Cas. Thank you.”

“Why are you thanking me for?”

“Well, because you knew all those things about the Heminguy,” she shrugged.

“Hemingway,” Castiel had corrected her again, but at this point, it was obvious she kept calling him that to annoy him. That’d made him strangely happy. It was like an inside joke between the two of them. Castiel didn’t have many friends, so having someone to share an inside joke with was something completely new.

“Hey, you wanna go for a coffee later?” Meg asked. “My treat. I owe you for the A.”

She was smiling. Castiel liked her when she smiled, because it made her serious or threatening expression soften. And he had said yes to the cup of coffee.

By the time he finished drinking it, he was already in love with her.

 

* * *

 

And now she was there again.

She had grown taller, of course, but not by much. Her hair had returned to her natural black, and her face was a little rounder.

But the smirk she showed him was the same.

“Well, hello!” she exclaimed, taking a step towards him.

“Hi!” Castiel exclaimed, clumsily advancing towards her, his arms extended a little bit because he didn’t know if he should go for a hug or if he should shake her hand or…

Meg seemed as disconcerted as him, but of course, she handled it better. She stood in front of him, put her hands on his forearm like a sort of weird semi-hug and stood on the tip of her toes to kiss him in the cheek. It was the most innocent gesture, but for some reason, it made a lot of feelings Castiel thought long forgotten came flooding his mind once more.

“I-I didn’t know you’ve come back,” he stammered.

“I didn’t know you were still in town,” she said. The playful glimmer in her eyes hadn’t changed either.

And that was about the time Castiel remembered his boyfriend was standing just a few steps behind, staring at them with his mouth slightly ajar, like he wanted to say something and he couldn’t find the words.

“Oh, hello, Dean.”

“So you know each other?” Dean asked again.

“From high school, yes,” Castiel said, scratching the back of his neck. Then he came to the conclusion he really had nothing to hide: “We used to date.”

“And now you’re dating him?” Meg asked, pointing at Dean. She seemed utterly amused at the whole ordeal. “It’s been a long time, for sure.”

Castiel was not entirely certain what she meant, but he felt uncomfortable all of the sudden.

“You’re looking good,” Meg said after a few seconds of awkward silence.

“Yes, thank you, I… I go running,” he said. He cringed, because he was pretty sure that was not the answer Meg was looking for, but it was the best he had to offer for himself. She was either unaware of his discomfiture or blatantly ignoring it. He had never been able to tell, and now it was no different.

“It shows,” Meg added, bumping him in the bicep with her closed fist. “Well, it’s been good to see you.”

“You too,” Castiel replied. He was still not entirely sure what was going, why she was back there, but the second she turned her back on him, he realized he wouldn’t be able to let her go just like that. “How long are you staying in town?” he shouted at her.

“I’m… kind of living here now,” Meg said, turning towards him again. “I work at the hospital, come to Dean’s bar now and then.”

“It’s… it’s actually Ellen’s bar,” Dean intervened, pathetically.

“So… I guess I’ll see you around,” Meg continued, like she hadn’t heard.

“I guess so,” Castiel said, but that wasn’t good enough. That wasn’t the answer he was looking for. “It would be great if we could get together some time,” he added, when Meg was already opening the door to her car. “To… catch up or something.”

“Yeah, okay,” Meg said, with a shrug. “We’ll see.”

And with the vaguest of promises ever, she drove away. Castiel was still stunned for several seconds to realize Dean was clearing his throat loudly next to him. He turned towards him, fully expecting his boyfriend to start interrogating him about every single detail of his relationship with Meg right there, but instead, Dean said simply: “Let’s go home.”

It wasn’t until they were several blocks away from the bar that Castiel remembered they were supposed to be going somewhere else and he was supposed to be mad at Dean. But he couldn’t conjure up the energy for either of those things. Meg’s sudden appearance had turned his night upside down, and he didn’t know how to being acting normal again.

It didn’t help at all that Dean obviously wanted to talk about, but was instead grumpily driving while clutching the wheel unnecessarily tight.

So Castiel decided that tackling the issue directly was the best policy.

“It was a long time ago,” he said. “Meg and I. We were in high school. We were kids.”

“Yeah, okay,” Dean said, trying to pretend he was indifferent to the whole issue and failing miserable. “I mean, it’s not like you have to give me a detailed account of every relationship you’ve ever had. I mean, can you imagine if you wanted _me_ to do that?”

“Yes,” Castiel said, glaring at his boyfriend. “I figure that would be a really long conversation.”

Dean realized it was best to shut up about that topic.

“I don’t care,” he said after several blocks in which neither of them said something. “It’s like you said, you were kids. You’re totally different people now. I mean, I’m surprised you even remember her.”

“You missed the turn,” Castiel mumbled, looking outside of the window. He’d come to the conclusion Dean didn’t really want to hear about what had gone on between him and Meg, so he wasn’t going to tell him.

But it was clear he was going to sulk about it for some time, so Castiel put a hand on his knee as Dean turned around to take the right street.

“Whatever you’re thinking, I need you to remember I’m with you now, and I have been with you objectively longer,” he reminded him. “Even if you irritate me sometimes and forget about our appointments for the wine tasting for my mother’s birthday.”

“Oh, so _that_ ’s what I forgot!” Dean exclaimed. Then, upon realizing Castiel was not amused by that reaction, he quickly added: “I mean… I’m really sorry, baby. I won’t do it again.”

“Apology accepted,” Castiel replied, unable to avoid the small smirk that appeared on his lips. “Now let’s get inside and catch some sleep.”

Dean was clearly relieved that Castiel’s fury had been so easily avoided.

“Sounds good.”

 

* * *

 

Two hours later, Dean was snoring softly while Castiel laid wide awake by his side, counting the shadows that paraded on their room’s wall now and then. After a while, as silently as he could, he kicked the covers aside and tiptoed out of the bedroom.

It didn’t take him long to find his old journals in the library. They had survived his years of college and two house changes, and many times Castiel had wondered if it would be best to just throw them away. They contained a lot of memories he would rather not have present, like his father’s passing and some awful heartbreaks he wasn’t sure now how he’d endured.

But there were also good memories in them. He turned the pages until he found the ones that corresponded to the summer of 1999. Trapped between the pages, there was a yellowing Polaroid that he caught in the air when it escaped the journal. He sat on his couch and turned on the little lamp next to it to take a good look at it.

It was probably the only picture he had of Meg. He didn’t remember who took it (Gabriel, probably, or maybe one of the kids from school), but he did remember the day. Several kids in the neighborhood had gathered around on his cousin Anna’s yard for a Fourth of July celebration. Meg had been self-conscious (but of course, unwilling to admit it) because every kid in there knew she lived in a trailer park with her father and her brother. But maybe out of respect to Castiel, nobody had made a comment about it, instead treating her like it was perfectly normal that a girl like her would date a boy like Castiel.

The contrast seemed almost comical in the photograph now. Meg was wearing a plaid mini skirt and a tank top, and her lip ring was prominently displayed in her wide red grin. She was hugging the chubby, glass-wearing boy that Castiel had been, and even in the discolored picture, it was obvious he was blushing.

Even now, Castiel didn’t know why Meg had chosen him. He didn’t know why she had decided to be his friend, why she had decided to let him ask her out to the movies (oh, god, he still remembered how he had stuttered and dropped the paper flower he meant to give to her) and give her a kiss goodnight before she climbed on the bus that would take her back home. (She never let him see her home, perhaps out of embarrassment).

He didn’t know why she had grabbed his hand when the fireworks began and muttered in his ear that they should go somewhere more private.

He remembered how nervous he had been when they went back to his house. His mother and his brothers were out. He had no idea where they went, but what was important was that they were not there to ask uncomfortable questions when Castiel and Meg climbed the stairs hand in hand and locked themselves in his room.

Castiel had been a nervous wreck, and she had noticed.

“What’s wrong?” she’d asked. They were lying in bed side by side, and it was pretty obvious by the way she had kissed him where this was going.

“Nothing,” Castiel had said, fidgeting with the hole in his covers. “I just, uhm…”

His throat was close and he could feel the blood pounding inside his skull. Thankfully, he hadn’t needed to continue.

“You’ve… never done this before, have you?” Meg had asked, sitting up on the bed and looking at him with wide eyes.

“I’m sorry,” Castiel had muttered. He didn’t know why he was apologizing. Perhaps because he suspected Meg was expecting something else. Perhaps because he was afraid she would be disappointed that he was such a loser that she was the first girl ever he had kissed and fallen in love with or…

“Hey, hey, don’t be,” Meg had said, putting a hand on his cheek and gently pulling his face so he would look at her. “It’s okay. I know how to do it.”

Castiel hadn’t asked how she knew. It was something very personal, and he didn’t want Meg to feel that he was nothing but respectful towards her.

Before he could add anything else, she was straddling him and gently taken off his glasses to put them on the night stand. Now her face looked a little blurry, but Castiel could tell she was smiling still when she leaned over for another kiss.

“What worries you?” she had asked, stroking his cheek with her thumb.

“I’m worried that I won’t be good,” Castiel had confessed. “I’m worried that you’re not going to like it and…”

“Don’t think like that,” she had cut him off. “Of course I’ll like it. I love you, Clarence.”

It was the first and also the last time she’d said it. It had been pretty out of character for her, but in retrospective it made. She must have known by then that only three weeks later she would be leaving Sioux Falls with her family, and they wouldn’t see each other for a long time. Sixteen years, to be exact. Now they were double the age they were that summer when he had lost his virginity to her.

Castiel opened his diary once more, and found the postcards she had sent during the following year after he left. They were from completely different states, and in them, she simply said that she and her family were okay and looking for a new place to settle down for her to finish her last year of high school. She didn’t asked how he was or said that she missed him, but the postcards were all addressed to “Clarence.” He never did ask her why she had given her that nickname.

After the last postcard (that put her and her family somewhere in California), they had completely lost touch. If there were most postcards, he never received them, because the following year he had gone to college in Kansas. Why Kansas? Because he wanted to get away from his family, but he knew they would never let him go too far away.

When he had walked into his dorm, the wall on the left side was already covered in posters of girls in provocative poses leaning over gigantic muscle cars.

“Hey,” his roommate, a boy taller than him with green eyes and freckles all over the bridge of his nose, had smiled at him. “Hope you don’t mind I already started decorating. I’m Dean, by the way.”

Castiel remembered thinking his roommate looked like a bit of a prick.

He blinked and returned to the present. He had never thought the two most important persons in his life, the only two he had ever loved, would ever cross paths, but there they were. Life was funny that way.

He hid Meg’s photograph and postcards back inside his journal and returned it to its place on the shelf. When he went back to the room, Dean’s snoring had softened a little bit. Castiel slid back under the covers, wrapped his arms around his boyfriend’s waist and sank his nose on the back of his head. He was asleep within seconds.

Dean took a little longer to go back to sleep. He was still wondering what had taken Cas so long to come back to bed.


	3. Paranoia

The following week was busy. They had three different groups of students that got into the bar with fake IDs (they didn’t particularly respected Dean when he told them to leave, but they couldn’t get out of the door fast enough when Ellen came out of the back and threatened to call their parents), one drunk guy that stood on a table top and started making an impromptu striptease, and several hippie drifters looking for a job.

Ellen called it the usual summer rash: kids had more time in their hands or were visiting their parents for the summer or were in the middle of their life-changing road trip across the country. In any case, it was Dean who had to deal with them, so it seemed like the fun never ended there in the Roadhouse.

The one person he didn’t see in the entire week was Meg.

The first few nights Dean didn’t expect to see her, because maybe she was busy with the hospital or something. Truth be told, he was relieved she wasn’t showing up, because he still hadn’t wrapped his head around the whole “you used to date my boyfriend and for what you told me, you’re still kind of hung up on him” business. He imagined it must be even freakier for her, to go back to that godforsaken town only to find “her unicorn” was in a relationship with another man nowadays.

And it wasn’t like Dean was a jealous guy, not at all. After years of friendship and three of actual dating, he trusted Cas with his life and it wasn’t like he believed that he would run away with an old high school sweetheart just because. It hadn’t even crossed his mind. Of course not. That would be ridiculous.

In any case, the whole business was weird. And maybe that’s why Dean got a little defensive when Castiel inquired:

“Have you seen Meg?”

They were in the kitchen, making dinner together like they did every night Dean had free. Dean was making the burgers while Castiel stirred his famous homemade mayonnaise, and the question came so casually, yet so suddenly that Dean almost dropped the ball of meat he had in his hands.

“Why you ask?” he wanted to know. If he sounded too brusque, Castiel didn’t show it.

“No reason,” he said, shrugging and continuing to pay attention to his mayonnaise. “She did mention she was a regular, so I was just wondering.”

“Well, you know, regular is just an expression,” Dean said, trying to come off as nonchalant as Cas. “Regulars are anything but regulars. I mean, there are regulars who go there… you know, regularly. Like once or twice a week, and always on the same days, so those you could call those patrons regulars, sure. But other regulars are completely irregular, like you have no idea when they’re gonna show up and Meg is that kind of regular… so what I’m trying to say here is that no, I haven’t seen her.”

He had been squashing the meat with so much force that now it was a burger so thin it would get burned in two seconds. With a huff, he made a ball of it again and refused to meet his boyfriend’s gaze.

“Okay,” Castiel said in the end.

And that could have been the end of it; that _should_ have been the end of it. But Dean felt like a little maggot was gnawing at his heart, and he just couldn’t help himself.

“Why?”

“Why what?” Castiel asked, with complete indifference, like his mind had wandered off to another matter entirely.

“Why you asked me if I’d seen her?”

Castiel finally raised his eyes from what he was doing and stared at Dean. He had tried to sound cool and detached, but that was Castiel thing, and so he knew that Castiel knew that he was not cool at all. In fact, he was a nervous ticking bomb about to explode.

“No particular reason,” Castiel repeated, keeping a composure that was driving Dean out of his mind. “I was going to ask you to ask her for her number so we can invite her over some time. So you get a chance to meet her and we can catch up.”

“Why?” Dean insisted. There were so many other things he didn’t dare to say behind that why. Why do want to see her? Why is this important to you? Are you still hung up on her like she is on you? Do you prefer your memories with her over your present with me? _Am I not enough?_

“Because she was an important part of my life once, Dean,” Castiel replied, with absolute calm. “And I think it would be nice to come in contact with her again.”

That didn’t help the mess in Dean’s mind at all, but instead of starting screaming out like he wanted to do, he went back to silently making burgers for a few seconds.

“I think she still has a little thing for you,” he said. He was trying to sound casual about it, even though he was way past that point and Castiel knew he was well past that point.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Castiel huffed. “That was ages ago. We were teenagers.”

“Well, I’m her bartender _now_ ,” Dean said, slamming the burger down with a little more force than it was necessary. “And you wouldn’t believe the things people confess to me when they’ve downed a beer or two. And I’m telling you, she’s told me, with her own words, that she still has a thing for you.”

Castiel sighed deeply and left the bowl on the counter, because for some reason he needed to have his hands free when he turned around to look at Dean.

“That might be the case,” he admitted, although the look in his eyes indicated he was still skeptical about it. “But have you considered that is how _she_ feels, not me?”

“Then why you wanna see her?” Dean asked, raising his voice. “Why is it important to you?”

“Dean…”

“You remember what happen with us, right?” Dean continued. “After college, we didn’t see each other for years, and then when we met again it was like…”

“Dean, I have no idea what you’re trying to say.”

Castiel’s tone of voice was completely collected, but to someone who knew him as well as Dean did, it was obvious he was a hair away from losing his patience.

And Dean didn’t really want to fight, he really didn’t, and the truth was that he had no idea what he was trying to say, but he just needed to know. He needed Castiel to assure him that they, there, that was what he wanted and that he would never leave. And Dean was painfully aware how pathetic it was that he needed that confirmation, but at the same time, he couldn’t help himself.

“Why does it matter to you?” he asked, even though it was obvious that it was Castiel who should be asking that question.

Castiel took a deep breath, trying to contain his rage and failing spectacularly at it.

“Because she was my first, okay?” he said. “Is that what you wanted to hear? She was my first love; she was the person I lost my virginity to. You don’t forget a person like that. Can you tell me the name of your twelfth girlfriend, Dean?” he asked, taking a step to get closer to Dean, so he couldn’t escape his gaze. “Can you tell me the name of your first man?”

Dean’s hands were trembling by that point. He didn’t like it, he didn’t like what Castiel was implying, but it was undeniable that he was right. He really had no right to be prying in his boyfriend’s romantic or sexual history when he himself had not been a celibate monk.

But instead of staying and admitting he had fucked up and apologizing, Dean did what Dean Winchester did best: he ran to avoid anything remotely uncomfortable.

“You know what, whatever,” he said. It didn’t sound as calm as he wanted it to sound. His voice came out all shaky and like he was choking on something. “It doesn’t even matter.”

He turned his back, and even though he heard Castiel calling out to him, he didn’t stop. He went to the room – their room – and sat on the bed – the bed they shared – but didn’t lay down, because that might have been too dramatic, even for him, even for the circumstances.

He still punched a couple of pillows and paced around the room for a several long, drawn-out minutes.

What was wrong with him? He wasn’t like that. He didn’t pick up fights just because. And of course he knew Castiel would never cheat on him, he would never hurt him that way. Knowing the guy, it was probably just a matter of him wanting to rekindle a friendship for old times’ sake, just trying to be nice to someone that had meant much to him in the past. None of the ideas that had gone through his head since finding out about Cas and Meg’s relationship made sense when he looked at them closely.

And now he had to apologize. He hated being the first to apologize, but he owed it to Cas for acting like a complete asshat.

He opened the door and took two steps outside before he saw Cas in the second to last step, clearly heading to the room. The two stayed there, frozen for a moment. Then Castiel smiled, and Dean burst into laughter, and it was hard to remember why they’d been mad at each other again.

“Come here,” Castiel said, opening his arms for Dean.

It was a strange thing, Dean thought. Castiel was a few inches shorter than him, and yet, when they hugged, he felt like he was the smaller of the two. He felt safe in those arms, he felt protected. He felt at home.

Castiel put his chin on his shoulder and held him tight. Dean left a kiss on his temple, so glad that Cas could forgive his stupidity and his insecurity so easily.

“I’m sorry,” they both said, almost as the same time. They chuckled and Castiel let go just a little so they could see eye to eye.

“I’m sorry, Dean,” Castiel started, before Dean could even open his mouth. “I’m sorry I dismissed your concerns like that. I didn’t mean to say they’re invalid. I know I would feel pretty restless if, for example, Cassie rolled in town all of the sudden.”

Dean cringed. He didn’t think Castiel remembered the name of the first girl he had confessed to love, all those years after their affair in college. But of course he would remember that. Castiel had been the one who’d had to endure Cassie practically living in their dorm until they broke up.

“Yeah, and I’m sorry I was a paranoid douche for no reason,” Dean said.

“Apology accepted,” Castiel replied, and hugged him again. “I love you.”

“I know,” Dean laughed, and made sure to ruffle Castiel’s hair to really drive the point home. They stayed there for several seconds, because neither of them wanted to move. In the end, Dean sighed: “My twelfth girlfriend was Rhonda Hurley,” he said. Well, he wasn’t exactly sure she had been the twelfth, but she was probably around the number. “She made me try her panties on.”

Castiel laughed and stepped away. “Be serious!” he demanded, punching Dean in the bicep gently.

“I’m serious!” Dean replied. “They were pink and satiny. I kinda liked it.”

Castiel continued laughing while Dan dragged him by the belt to their room.

The following day, Dean found the remains of what would have been the dinner resting on the counter, and it was disgusting to have to clean that up, but he did it without protesting and had the coffee ready before Cas was out of the shower. And really, for a moment, he felt like he had washed the shadow of his doubts as easily as he had washed those dishes.

Castiel loved him. That was all he needed to remember.

And he specially needed to remember it that night, when Meg sauntered back on the bar.

Though “saunter” wasn’t the appropriate word. It was more like she dragged her feet towards the stool in front of the counter, flailed down on it and threw her car keys in front of Dean like they had insulted her mother. He noticed she was still wearing her hospital scrubs, which meant she had gone there directly after work.

“Give me a shot,” she ordered, dryly.

“O… kay,” Dean said, slightly taking aback. “Of?”

“Everything,” Meg replied. “And make it double. I need to get drunk tonight.”


	4. Awkward As All Hell

A part of Meg knew that, logically, this was not the best way to deal with what had happened that day. In fact, it was probably the worst course of action she could take. Meg was a person who had made enough mistakes in her life to recognize that at least half of them had been caused or worsened by alcohol.

She still didn’t care. There was no way she was going to go through the next forty eight hours or so sober. And if of all the gin joints in all of the town she had to go to the one where the boyfriend of her ex-boyfriend worked to accomplish that without getting killed or killing someone else in a car crash because Dean was the only bartender she’d made the precaution to befriend, well, she’d just have to put up with the awkwardness.

In any case, her plan was that in a couple of hours she’d be too drunk to care. She started by chugging down three shots of whiskey in a row.

“Woah, shouldn’t you… slow down a little bit?” Dean asked her.

“Shut up and pour me another,” Meg snapped.

Dean obeyed. He obviously had realized that Meg was on a mission and it was better to stay out of her fucking way until she’d accomplish it.

The day had started so well that, in retrospective, Meg should have known that something horrible would happen. Working at the psychiatric ward wasn’t always a piece of cake (it wouldn’t be the psychiatric ward if it was), but Meg had started her shift during a moment of relative peace around the place. None of the patients seemed to be having a bad day, none had tried to grab her ass or flung shit (and she meant literal _shit_ ) at her, and all the senior patients miraculously behaved during bingo hour.

Of all the people there, the old ones were the one Meg felt the sorriest for. Everybody else could aspire to eventually get over their most recent crisis or that the doctors would finally find the right combination of meds to make the chemical imbalance in their brains a little bit better. And though it might happen that they would need to come back to them in a future, they could get well enough to not be there all the time.

The old patients usually had some form of Alzheimer or senile dementia. Their families didn’t have the money to have them committed to specialized nursing homes that would take care of them appropriately. So instead, they dumped their grandparents there – they left them there, Meg corrected herself, to be taken care off. And there they languished, forgetting pieces of themselves every day until they were all gone and everything that was left of them was an empty carcass, waiting to exhale their last breath.

Meg thought that if she was ever diagnosed with a sickness that would mean the progressive loss of her mind, she would sooner rather than later put a bullet through it. It was a pretty bleak thought in view of what had happened that day.

She had made her rounds, and found all the patients in an unaccustomed good cheer. Even the ones who were lost in their minds enough to confuse her with one of their granddaughters or with an old girlfriend of them seemed all pretty healthy and happy. Death was definitely coming for them, but perhaps not that particular day.

The last person she’d checked on was Marin. She was a twenty-two years old girl with a manic-depressive disorder. She had been (not for the first time) on suicide watch for a couple of days. But today she’d looked fine, she’d looked happy. She’d even called Meg “Nurse Masters” and not “Nurse Ratchet number 3” as she did when she was in her bleaker moods.

“My family is picking me up today,” she had commented as Meg gave her the pills and then offered her a plastic cup of water to swallow them. “They said now that I’m better, we could go on a road trip. I’m going to draw everything we see.”

Marin was an artist though there in the ward they only let her draw in the dayroom, under the strict vigilance of members of the staff. Pencils and pens could be used to stab oneself in the neck (Another perk of working at psychiatric ward: you learned all the most original methods of suicide).

“Well, I hope you have a great time, Marin,” Meg had said. She didn’t add “And I hope I don’t see you here again anytime soon”, but she thought it.

She was the last person to see Marin alive.

The next person to check up on her found her on the bathroom floor. They tried reanimating her, but she was already gone.

Meg felt like an eighteen-wheeler truck had ran over her when Dr. Kardinsky called her to his office to let her know about it.

“Apparently she had been storing her pills for some time now, with this very propose in mind,” Kardinsky had told her. “Did you know anything about it?”

It’d taken Meg a second or two to realize he was talking to her.

“No,” she’d said, shaking her head, in part to dissipate her numbness. “No, I’m sure she always swallowed them with me. And it wasn’t always me that gave them to her, I…”

But Kardisnky had looked at her with a mixture of sympathy and severity that made Meg understand that nothing she said would make any difference. When Marin’s parents arrived, they would find a corpse instead of their daughter waiting for them, and once they had finished crying and cursing God, they would start looking for someone to blame around the hospital.

And they would probably start with her, the nurse that was stupid enough to not see what Marin was planning to do.

“Take a couple of days off, Masters,” Kardisnky said. “I think it’ll be for the best.”

He didn’t say it, but Meg could read between the lines: it’d be better if it seemed like she had been suspended in lieu of Marin’s suicide. And it’d be even better if she was fired in case her parents decided to sue. “No, no,” the hospital could say then. “It wasn’t us! It was that nurse, and we fired her! We can’t be held accountable!”

In her heart of hearts, Meg knew she wasn’t to blame either. But people weren’t always rational when it was about the dead of loved ones, hospital administrations weren’t always fair when it came to cover their own asses and she was never easy on herself when she was drunk.

She still was drinking money she should save up in case she really was fired, and getting steadily drunker and angrier with every drop of alcohol that fell in her in her mouth.

“…’s not my fault,” she slurred. She wasn’t sure how much she’d told Dean, and if he had understood even half of her story, but she didn’t give a damn. “It wasn’t my fault, but they need a scapegoat.”

“Sounds rough,” Dean said.

In her inebriated state, Meg couldn’t say if he was being ironic or if he really felt sorry for her. In any case, it didn’t make any difference. The only reason she needed Dean there was so that he could keep her glass full, which currently wasn’t.

“Keep ‘em coming, pretty boy,” Meg groaned. “I can still feel my thoughts.”

“Don’t you mean your feelings?” Dean asked, and now he was definitely pulling her leg.

“Whatever,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Why don’t you just leave the bottle here? Save us both the trouble.”

“It’s no trouble Meg,” he said, as he poured more liquor on her glass. Meg wasn’t even sure what she was drinking at this point. For what she knew, Dean could have been giving her water instead of alcohol. “It’s my job,” he added, before he made a move to get away from her.

“Yeah, but you don’t really want me here, do you?” Meg screamed on his wake. “You probably wished I never came back.”

She must have been talking way too loud, because she noticed some heads turning in her direction.

“What are you looking at?” she spat at some guy to her left. The guy promptly looked away.

“What do you mean?” Dean asked, coming back to Meg’s place on the counter so she wouldn’t scream anymore. “Meg, I really couldn’t…”

“I can see what you’re thinking,” Meg replied. “You’re, you’re… you’re thinking I’m here to steal your man, aren’t you?”

Except that her words came out too fast from her mouth, so the last question sounded something like a sneeze: “Aren’t- _choo_?” And she found that hilarious, so she had to laugh a little.

“It never crossed my mind,” Dean said.

Meg had serious trouble believing that. She was still not too drunk that she had forgotten all the things she’d said about Castiel, how she’d opened up her heart to the bartender with big green eyes and all that shit. She had messed up big time, but at least that she could admit had been an honest mistake.

“I mean, it’s not like I expected to see him again,” Meg said, as she clumsily took the glass to her lips again. “I just, I just… excuse me.”

She hit her chest with a fist a couple of times and let out a bitter belch.

“I’m just a nostalgic idiot,” she continued. She wasn’t even sure Dean was listening to her at that point, but she still felt the need to keep going. “And you know what? That _‘keep-your-hands-off-my-man’_ look you keep throwin’ at me… you can stop it, hot stuff. I might be a lot of things, but I ain’t no home wrecker.”

“Okay, Meg,” Dean said, as he carefully tried to pry the glass from her hand. “I think that’s quite enough for now…”

“Nope,” Meg said, shaking her head. That was a bad idea: the bar started spinning around her, so she had to close her eyes to avoid falling from the stool. “Nope, it’s not been enough. I’ll tell you when it’s been enough, and it hasn’t. So pour me another one.”

Dean narrowed her eyes at her, almost as if he thought she was challenging him to do it. Meg gazed right back. She could still see Marin’s face floating in front of her like a ghost, so of course it hadn’t been enough.

“Are you planning on passing out on my counter?” Dean sighed in the end. He was filling up Meg’s glass to the brim, just like she wanted him to.

“Yes,” she admitted, with a shrug that must have looked a little uncoordinated. “You got a problem with that?”

Dean answered with another shrug and finally – God blessed him – placed the bottle of vodka right next to her.

Meg didn’t remember much after that. She remembered the taste of alcohol because it had lingered in her mouth for a long time. She remembered the bar and how the walls seemed to comb around her when she tried standing up. She remembered the black spots in her eyes, and how someone had grabbed her by the elbow before the floor came too close to her face.

“Woah, there, hey, hold on,” said the guy next to her. “I’m closing now, I can come with you.”

If she had been less fucked up, Meg would have probably tried to smile and flirt with her would-be savior.

“Oh, you’re a real sweetheart,” she muttered anyway. “But I’m fine… I can catch a whatever… you know, those cars that take you to places for money…”

“Yeah, I don’t think so,” the guy said. “Let’s get you the hell out of here.”

Some alarms started blaring in Meg’s mind, but she was too far gone to hear them. The last thing she remembered before she blacked out was being escorted to a big black muscle car.

 

* * *

 

She woke with a jolt.

Her head pounded like it had been submitted to several tons of pressure, and her mouth felt dry. She had to close her eyes and open them again several times while she waited for the room to stop spinning around her face.

She didn’t know what time it was. Judging by the pale light coming in through the window (the place where she was had windows; good to know she hadn’t been kidnapped by a random serial killer who locked her up in their basement), it must have been pretty early in the morning. The wallpaper around her showed little flowers and vines, and she still had her scrubs from the hospital on.

That still didn’t tell her much.

She got up from the bed where she was laying very slowly, because her muscles were sore and contracted, like she had slept in a very uncomfortable position, and dragged herself to the nearest door. It turned to be a very small bathroom, with a shower so minimal she wasn’t sure it was legal, but at that very moment, she thought it was the most luxurious bathroom she had seen in her whole life. She spent the next ten minutes hanging onto the toilet for dear life.

The woman that looked back at her from the mirror reminded her of her worst days from back at college. The difference was back then she had drunk to have a good time at parties. Last night, she had drunk to avoid feeling her own misery.

And just like that, Marin’s face flashed right before her eyes again.

Meg opened the faucet and threw cold water onto her face until both her scrubs and her hair were completely wet.

She needed to get out of there, wherever “there” was. She found her jacket on a chair by the door and walked out of the room.

The house she was in was pretty, to be honest: white walls decorated with paintings of country sides and mountains. There was a couch underneath a painting of a field full of sunflowers, and she wondered why whoever had brought her there hadn’t just dumped her there as soon as they crossed the door, no doubt carrying her unconscious body. Taking her to the other room seemed like going an unnecessary extra mile.

She was meditating whether to leave a thank you note or just get the hell out of dodge in silence when the main door opened.

Castiel walked in, rubbing his face. His grey shirt was wet with sweat, as was his hair. He was wearing a pair of shorts and some dirty sneakers, and suddenly, Meg was hyperaware of awful she looked and felt compared to him.

Castiel stopped in his tracks when he saw here. His blue eyes widened.

“M-Meg?”

“What are you doing here?” Meg asked.

“I-I… live here,” Castiel replied, still staring at her like he was convinced this was a particularly confusing dream.

That answer was glaringly obvious, but Meg hadn’t meant was not so much “Why are you in this house?” as much as “Why are you here in the front row seat to the mess I am?”

As if to make things worse for everybody, Dean chose that exact moment to saunter downstairs in nothing but a pair of black boxer briefs and a grey shirt.

“Coffee,” he yawned. “I need coffee, nobody talk to me until I’ve had coffee.”

He disappeared through a door Meg deduced led to the kitchen, and then popped his head back out, apparently realizing this was not a normal situation in his house.

“So…” he muttered. “Uh, you staying for breakfast… Meg?”

 


	5. A Successful Ambush

Dean decided explanations could wait until everybody had sat with a plate of food in front of them. Meg and Castiel both agreed, so while Castiel hit the shower, Meg hit her face against the table and groaned in pain. It was not a pretty picture.

“Here,” Dean said, putting a mug and a plate in front of her. Meg looked at the food, and then at him like he was asking her to make a titanic effort at something completely useless. “Come on, you can’t have anything for your headache unless you’ve eaten something. You should know that, you’re a nurse.”

Meg groaned again and dragged the mug closer to her. She looked pale and there were dark circles under her eyes. Her hair was a tangled mess, and her hands weren’t very firm when she lifted the mug to her mouth. Dean watched her swallow, and by the way she pursed her lips, he was certain she was going to spill the content, but in the end, she managed to force it down.

“Tea, huh?” she muttered, with a weak smirk. “Smart. I don’t need to be more dehydrated than I already am.”

“Well, you know, Cas is all about hydration,” Dean shrugged. “We’ve got like seven different kinds of tea in this house. He has a British friend that sends it to him.”

Meg blinked at him. “You mean Balthazar?”

“How do you know?” Dean asked, surprised.

“He was an exchange student in our school,” she explained. “Smuggiest bastard I’ve ever met. Can’t believe they’re still talking to each other.”

Dean overcame pretty easily the shock of remembering that Meg knew a lot of things about Castiel past on the basis that he completely shared her opinion of Balthazar.

Meg grabbed a fork, sank it into the scrambled eggs and put it in her mouth without further commentary. For a moment, she grimaced like she was physically rejecting the food, but she managed to swallow that too in the end.

“There,” she said. “Can I have some aspirins now?”

Dean pushed the bottle in her direction without further commentary. It still took several minutes and some hesitant bites of her breakfast before she decided to make conversation.

“So, what exactly happened last night?” she asked.

“Well, you came to the bar, told me a very sad story about a suicidal girl and how you might lose your job,” Dean said. Meg visibly cringed. “And then you drank all of our vodka reserve and demanded I call you a taxi, but on the state you were in I couldn’t in good conscious let you do that. So I got you to my car… and then I remembered I didn’t know where you lived.”

He probably should have asked that when he realized Meg had no intentions to slow down or stop, but he had been too busy worrying about her not passing out over the counter.

“Long story short, you took pity on me,” Meg concluded.

“I-I… I didn’t take pity on you,” Dean said. He was pretty sure at least Meg would like to save some face on the dignity department, but she looked completely unapologetic about her behavior when she looked at him with a crooked eyebrow and a knowing smirk. “Yeah, I took pity on you,” he ended up admitting.

“Good call,” Meg nodded. “Pretty sure last night _I_ didn’t know my address. I didn’t say anything embarrassing, did I?”

The words that were about to roll out of Dean’s tongue were _“You mean more embarrassing?”_ but then he decided he wasn’t ready to have that conversation.

“If you did, I didn’t catch it,” he said. “You were pretty fucked up.”

“And you were such a knight in shining armor,” Meg rolled her eyes, but it was all meant in good spirit.

“Who is?” asked Castiel, walking into the kitchen.

Dean looked at him and wondered why he was never up early in the morning to see his boyfriend fresh out of the shower. He should definitely try and do that more. Castiel’s cheeks were still pink from the vapor, and his eyes were glimmering, half-amused, half-satisfied. His hair was still all wet and pointing in every direction, which meant he would have the bed hair look Dean loves so much all day. He had put on a clean pair of jeans and a shirt so tight Dean could see the outline of his back muscles when he leaned over the counter to fill his mug with coffee.

“Your boyfriend,” Meg replied. “I owe him my life, and probably my honor too.”

“Well, it was a pretty reckless behavior,” Castiel scolded her. “Next time, make sure you know someone who will get you home.”

“I don’t have to. Dean will probably be there,” she replied, and then pointedly winked at him.

Dean was midway through wondering if that had been a flirtation when a scent of jasmines reached his nose. And it couldn’t be Meg, because she kind of still reeked of alcohol and tobacco from the bar that morning.

“Are you wearing cologne?”

“No,” Castiel lied to his face and continued to eat his breakfast as if there was nothing out of the ordinary happening. Dean did his best to repress all the paranoid feelings that it had something to do with Meg being there.

And in any case, she was leaving already.

“Well, boys, this has been nice,” she said, before she chugged down what was left in her mug. “But I really should go home, take a shower and spend the rest of the weekend groveling in misery.”

“I could give you a ride,” Castiel offered immediately.

“It’s fine,” Meg said. “The Beetle’s probably still parked outside the bar, so I’ll just take a taxi there and get my keys back.”

“Oh, wait, your keys aren’t there,” Dean remembered.

He had put them in the bowl on the coffee table, the place where they usually left small things they could never find later, like pens, phone chargers and a lot other keys. Meg’s keychain was a big purple “M”, so there was no way to have that confused.

“Aren’t you a doll?” Meg asked, when Dean handed it to her. “Well, gotta go now.”

“Meg,” Castiel called her when Meg had already a foot outside their doorway. “If you… find some time to interrupt your… groveling, maybe we could get together. You know, because… we said we would.”

“Yeah, I’m thinking not these days, Cas,” Meg said, shaking her head. “I’ve had a pretty rough deal. But, hey, I’ll call you.”

And with that, she was out of the door. In Castiel’s favor, it had to be said he did everything in his power to hide his disappointment.

“That’s… that’s a shame,” he muttered to the close door before turning around to meet Dean’s gaze. “What?”

“Nothing,” Dean said. He went back to finish his breakfast with a calm he didn’t feel.

It was obvious Castiel was going to keep insisting until he had talked to Meg and she was just going to keep avoiding him until the end of times. It was also clear she had no intentions to call Castiel, because if she had, she would have stopped for two seconds to write down his number or give him hers.

So Dean decided to take matters on his own hands, not because Meg’s presence there had stopped bothering him, but because he realized it was something he was going to have to deal with now. Castiel wanted to rekindle their friendship, and Meg had assured him she had no intentions of acting on her feelings, so the best thing Dean could do was trust them both and get them together already so everybody could move on from the issue.

The plan hadn’t really fall into place by the time he saw the chance to put it in action, but in the end it worked out.

Just as he had predicted, Meg showed up less than twenty-four hours later and placed herself over her usual stool next to the counter.

“Don’t worry, I’m not going on a binge today,” she said, when Dean eyed her. “I just need a beer and some human contact or I’ll go out of my mind.”

“Unemployment’s a bitch, huh?”

Meg knocked on wood and reminded him that she hadn’t been fired yet, but she would have _him_ fired if he didn’t provide her with some alcohol ASAP. Dean didn’t take it personally. It was clear that Meg was still in brooding mood. To be honest, he expected she would probably be even more pissed at him when she discovered what he was about to do, but he was willing to risk it.

He texted Cas and then pretended to get a beer for Meg.

“Oh, shit, we’re all out of your brand here,” he said, hoping it didn't sound as fake as he thought it did. “Can you hang in there while I check if we have more in the fridge?”

Meg glared at him and made a gesture for him to hurry up.

They did, in fact, still have Meg’s brand underneath the counter, but Dean wanted to entertain her. If she had told the truth and was only there for a beer, then he had a very small margin of time in which to operate and he had to make the most of it. He took out the bottle fro the fridge, unfroze it a bit under the faucet, and the made his way very slowly back to the bar.

“Here we go,” he said. He then very pointedly pretended to drop his opener, and spent several seconds feeling the ground for it. Then, of course, it had to be washed before it could even touch a bottle.

Meg was giving him a weird look by the time he finally came around to open her beer.

“You’re really out of it tonight,” she commented.

“We can’t always have just sunny days,” Dean shrugged. “So you’ve got news from the hospital?”

Meg took a deep breath.

“Look, I really appreciate what you did for me yesterday,” she said. “But I’m still not in a conversational mood, so it would be really awesome of you if you moved to the other side of the bar and pretended I’m not here.”

“Alright,” Dean accepted. “But sadly I can’t pretend you aren’t here when I charge you for everything you drank last night.”

Meg cringed, probably calculating how much of her budget she could actually spare in repaying her debts.

“I’ll pay it,” she promised. “As soon as I finish with this, if it’s all the same to you.”

Dean gave her an uncompromising shrug, and just as she told him, he left her alone. He still glanced in her direction every now and then. She took slow, long swigs from her beer, and in between, she stared at the void with a long, melancholic gaze, like she wanted to cry, but couldn’t quite bring herself to do it.

Given all the time Dean had spent mistrusting her and being jealous of her past relationship with Cas like an insecure teenager, he never thought he would feeling what he was feeling right then: he felt sorry for Meg. It couldn’t be said that they were friends during those first weeks when she came around the bar and talked about her unicorn, but they had established a sense of camaraderie, the kind of relationship that bloomed between a bar tender and their regulars.

And to be quite honest, Meg was one of Dean’s favorite regulars. She was funny and sarcastic, and she tipped well. Seeing her so down was hard, but Dean didn’t dare to try and coax a conversation out of her again. Not after everything he’d thought about her in the privacy of his paranoid mind.

For the first time, it dawned on him that maybe Castiel wasn’t the only one who needed to rekindle his relationship with her. So disregarding her instructions, he went back to her side of the bar.

“I’m not done yet,” she groaned, shaking the still half-full bottle in his face.

“Yeah, I get that,” Dean said, not ready to let her hostility discourage him. “Hey, you remember that guy from the first time you were here? The one who tried to flirt with you before you broke his finger?”

A smirk flickered on Meg’s lips before disappearing again.

“What about him?”

“He came back around the other day,” he told her. It had been weeks ago, during the time Meg had been MIA after the big Castiel discovery, but he thought it’d be best to leave out that part. “With a _date_.”

“What?” Meg asked, really paying attention to him for the first time. “Who in their right mind would date that guy?”

“I was wondering the same thing, you know, and I got the feeling he had paid her,” Dean said. “She looked like the type that tried but didn’t quite make the cut for being a Playboy bunny: long bleached blonde hair, super tight shorts, and a shirt that looked more like a bikini top. And she was making head turns left and right, I’ll tell you that.”

“So?” Meg said, crooking a brow. “A girl has to eat.”

“Yeah, I’m not judging or anything,” Dean commented. “But I figure if he’d been paying her, she’d at least could’ve pretended not be bored out of her mind. Ellen tended to their table, and she said she heard the guy going on and on about his shotguns while the girl was clearly hoping the bar would catch fire just so she had an excuse to run like hell.”

This time he earned a chuckle, and figuring Meg would tell him to go to hell if that was where she wanted him to be, he continued:

“Anyway, a gang of bikers comes in. I’m talking five or six guys, all beefy, dressed in leather, covered in tats. The shortest one had to be at least six feet tall. They order beers, and go straight to the pool table. They laugh and they talk loud, and they were a rowdy bunch, but they weren’t really bothering anyone, so Ellen tells me to let them be. So I let them be, but after a while Flirty Guy comes over to complain about them. In the two hot seconds it took him for him to go from his table to here, his date gets up and goes to the bikers. They whistle at her, but it doesn’t seem to bother her. She tells them something, and next thing Flirty Guy knows, they’re giving her a stick and she starts playing with them. Flirty Guy was _fuming_.”

“Oh, my God,” Meg said, shaking her head. “What did the idiot do?”

“He went over to them,” Dean told her. “All cocky and angry and he tells the girl: ‘ _Hey, Anne Marie, I don’t think you should be playing with guys like these.’_ And the biggest of the bikers – seriously, this guy was a giant with a super bushy beard and a black bandana on his head – he plants himself in front of Flirty Guy and he goes: ‘ _And who are you to tell the lady what she can or cannot do?_ ’ Flirty Guy does not take the hint and says: _‘I’m her boyfriend!’_ To which Anne Marie says, putting her hands up in the air like this: _‘Woah, dude, this is like our second date, and you’re being an ass.’_ ”

Meg covered her mouth. She was obviously trying to maintain her broody mood, but it was hard when Dean was telling her the funniest story she’d heard in a while.

“Flirty Guy just stands there like someone had slapped him on the face, so the biker leans on his stick glaring at him and says very politely: ‘ _I think it’s time for you to go._ ’ Meanwhile, I’m over here thinking: _‘Oh, God, please just go, I don’t wanna be scrubbing your brains from the floor.’_ ”

“Please tell me he got his ass handed to him,” Meg begged, as a satisfied smile appeared on her lips.

“Nah, he decided to save some face and scrammed with his tail between his legs,” Dean told her. “Anne Marie stayed, beat all the bikers and they offered her a ride home.”

Meg burst out laughing at the same time the door of the bar open and Castiel strode in. He apparently heard her, because he stopped where he was, paralyzed for a moment. Dean swallowed and decided the time had come.

“Hey, babe, over here,” he said, beckoning his boyfriend.

Meg turned around, still smiling from the anecdote, and waved her hand at Castiel.

“Hey,” she greeted him when he approached the counter.

“Oh… hello, Meg,” Castiel muttered, obviously a bit taken aback. “I… I just dropped by to give Dean his jacket,” he explained, showing it to her as if he needed an excuse to be there.

“Thank you, you’re the best,” Dean smiled, snatching the jacket he left at home on purpose and then pretended to forget. “Isn’t he the best?”

“You guys are the cutest,” Meg replied, leaning her chin against her hand.

Dean left to put the jacket on the back. By the time he returned, Meg was trying to convince Castiel to stay and have a beer with them.

“Are you sure?” Castiel asked, fidgeting with his fingers. “I wouldn’t want to bother you…”

“Come on, let’s stay until Dean’s shift is over and then we can leave all together,” she suggested. “Besides, weren’t you the one who wanted to catch up?”

Castiel hesitated a moment longer before showing Meg a shy smile. He pulled a stool next to hers and sat up. Dean placed a coaster and a beer in front of him.

All in all, his plan had been a success.


	6. Down Memory Lane

Dean still had to tend to other patrons, so he kept popping in and out of the conversation occasionally. Which Meg thought was perfectly fine, because the first ten or fifteen minutes were all about him.

“So… you and Wonder Boy over there, huh?” she asked. She had promised herself she wasn’t going to ask. After all, that was a super personal thing. If Cas had been gay all along and only figured it out later or if he was bi or something like that was totally his business and she knew it’d be rude to ask. But she still couldn’t help herself: “Bet that’s an interesting story.”

“I guess,” Castiel said, after taking a swig from his beer. “We met in college. We were roommates.”

“Ah,” Meg said, raising her eyebrows. Oh, God, she really needed to stop drinking right then.

“It wasn’t like that,” Castiel smiled, but the redness in his neck said otherwise. “We were friends. Also, back then Dean changed girls every other week.”

“Don’t tell it like that,” Dean groaned, who had approached them right in time to hear that last part. “You make me sound like a total manwhore.”

Castiel gave him an apologetic shrug, but when Dean turned his back on then he mouthed: “ _He was._ ” Meg chuckled.

“Then Dean’s dad passed and he had to drop out,” Castiel said. “We didn’t see much of each other for a while, until after I graduated. Dean was looking for a job and his Uncle Bobby…”

“He’s not really my uncle,” Dean intervened. “He was a good friend of my dad and he’s really helped me and my brother out a lot. He offered me to come work for him in his workshop, and I did because I needed the money to help Sam pay for his college.”

“Wait, so you are not at the workshop anymore?” Meg asked.

“I am,” Dean shrugged. “This is my second job, actually.”

“I keep telling him he overworks himself,” Castiel pointed out. “My books sell well enough that he doesn’t really need _both_ jobs.”

“And I keep telling _him_ I refuse to be his kept boy,” Dean replied, rolling his eyes. “I have some dignity left.”

“So you’re saying that dating me is an indignity?”

Dean paled so fast Meg feared for his blood pressure.

“No, of course not, I didn’t mean like that, babe, I… you’re an asshole,” he added when Castiel couldn’t contain his chuckle any longer.

“I know what you meant,” he said, with a grin. “I love you too.”

Dean grumbled something and went to clean up a glass, in the most stereotypical bartending fashion.

“So Dean moved here,” Castiel continued telling Meg. “And we… well, it was complicated. I knew how I felt about him since before we went our separate ways in college, but, you know…”

“It took him a little longer to come around,” Meg guessed.

“Understatement,” Castiel chuckled. “I had to explain to him with very small words that people are allowed to like both men and women. It has a name and everything.”

“That must have been torture,” Meg laughed. “You hate small words.”

“No, he really does!” Dean said, cheerful now that the tables had turned and they were making fun of Castiel. “Have you read some of his books?”

“No, but I remember the poems he wrote me in high school,” Meg said. Castiel’s face went beet red, while Dean blinked, feigning offense.

“You’ve never written me any poems!”

“Consider yourself lucky. They were awful,” Meg replied. “All about my thorny beauty and whatnot.”

Dean burst out laughing, while Castiel crossed his arms and looked away, sullen.

“Oh, come on, you know I’m just teasing you,” Meg said, bumping her shoulder against his. “You actually had game back then.”

“ _Had_?” Castiel repeated, scandalized.

“Well, I saw that picket white fence you have around your garden,” she explained. “Guess that means you’re out of the market for good.”

“That’s right,” Dean smiled. “I’m thinking about buying him a taken sign he can carry with him wherever he goes.”

“Isn’t that just called an engagement ring?”

This time both Castiel and Dean stared at her horrified.

“What?”

“Mother?” Castiel asked, cringing.

Dean burst out laughing, and even Meg chuckled a little.

“But in all seriousness,” Castiel said, shaking his head. “Several people have probed us about the topic, which I find incredibly annoying. We’re fine the way we are just now.”

“Got you,” Meg said, taking mental note of the way Dean looked away and very pointedly went to serve another patron.

“And what about you?” Castiel asked, changing the topic suddenly. “What have you been up to? The last postcard you sent me was from California. Did your family stayed there in the end?”

Meg took a long swig of her beer, wondering what would be the correct way to answer that. After a while she decided there wasn’t one.

“We stayed, but only because that’s where our father died,” she said. By Castiel’s horrified expression, she deduced she could have been lest blunt about it.

“Meg, I’m sorry, I had no idea…”

“Well, of course you wouldn’t have any idea,” she said, trying to keep a light tone. “We haven’t seen each other in ages, silly.”

Castiel still looked utterly commiserated, so Meg felt the need to elaborate.

“He was into some not so clean businesses. One of his partners got it into his head that he was stealing money from him. There was a fight with a gun involved, and well…”

“Meg…”

“It was years ago, Cas,” she replied with a shrug. But for all the indifference that she feigned, she was eager to change the topic. “It was actually the summer after I graduated high school. My brother – you remember Tom?”

“Yes,” Castiel nodded. He probably remembered a lanky nineteen-year-old boy who was overtly proud of the shadow of moustache he had managed to grow. Meg thought Tom back then had been pretty pathetic, so she was pretty surprised when Castiel admitted: “He… intimidated me. I’m pretty sure he hated me.”

“Well, you _were_ dating his baby sister,” Meg pointed out. “He had the moral obligation to hate you.”

That managed to put a smile on Castiel’s face, which was a relief.

“Well, my brother followed into my dad’s footstep, getting involved with some shady people,” she continued. “I decided I wanted nothing to do with that, so I used my college fund to buy me that second hand Beetle because it was all I could afford. I got the hell out of dodge and bounced here and there for a while.”

“But you eventually went to Nursing School,” Castiel pointed out.

“The original plan was to go back to college and get a degree in psychology,” Meg confessed. “But it turned out that was a little off-budget for me. So I did the next best thing.”

She made a dismissive gesture with her hand, like mocking her younger self for having such crazy ideas. She tried to ignore the commiserated look that had returned to Castiel’s face.

“Anyway, it took some time for me, but now my shit is actually together,” she said. “Mostly.”

“And you’re here,” Castiel said.

“And I’m here,” Meg repeated.

She didn’t mention the reason she was there. If Dean had told him, then Castiel already knew, and if he hadn’t, well… he didn’t really need to know.

“Well, I’m glad,” Castiel said. “I’m glad things turned out okay for you, and I’m glad we met again.”

“Yeah,” Meg said.

She didn’t say now she wished she had come back to Sioux Falls a few years earlier, before Dean did. She didn’t say that now she could see them up close, she noticed Castiel’s eyes were the exact same blue she remembered and she couldn’t tell why she expected that to be any different. She didn’t say her heart still skipped a beat when he smiled, because that would have ruined the evening and the fragile semblance of friendship they had recovered so far.

And she was not willing to risk that in pro of a stupid romantic fantasy that was obviously not bound to happen. Castiel was a great guy, and Dean was a great guy, and she was happy to be their friend and would never, ever, come in between them.

At least, she hoped with all her heart she could keep her good purposes.

“Hey, I’m done here,” Dean announced after exactly ten seconds of awkward silence. “Ready to go?”

Castiel tried to pay for Meg’s beer, but she refused to let him.

“I’m a big girl, I can afford my own alcohol,” she said. “At least until the hospital decides to fire me.”

“That’s so unfair what they did to you,” Dean commented. Of course, Meg had spilled the details to him during her drunken rambling, although she didn’t remember exactly what she had said. “You had no way of knowing that girl would do that.”

“Yeah, I keep telling myself that,” Meg sighed. “It doesn’t assuage the guilt, though.”

They all put on their jackets, but the night was actually so nice they could have taken a stroll underneath the stars without the need of wearing them. Summer was reaching its peak, and Castiel was thinking maybe Dean and him could invite Meg to go on a road trip with them to distract her from her issues. Maybe they could all go to Mount Rushmore or…

“Hey, Meg, you got any plans for the Fourth of July?” he heard Dean asking, and a rush of panic went through Castiel’s head.

“Dean, I don’t think…”

“Well, I thought maybe I’d get a six-pack and watch the fireworks on my TV,” Meg replied, with a shrug.

“Why don’t you come to our house?” Dean said. “Every year I make a barbecue and it’s like a small party. All of Castiel’s family comes over and criticize my cooking and my garden.”

“That’s not…” Castiel began to say, but then he realized any attempt at defending his family would have been insincere.

“Naomi too?” Meg asked, crooking an eyebrow.

“Especially Naomi.”

Meg chuckled, and Castiel understood why: when she had first been introduced to his mother, Naomi had been so scandalized by her lip ring and her excessive make up she could barely speak. After Meg, it had been actually pretty easy for Naomi to accept whoever Castiel was dating, up to and including another man.

“I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” she guaranteed.

“Well, we’ll see you then,” Dean concluded.

Meg winked at them and waved her hand before getting in the car.

“What can I tell you? She’s grown on me,” Dean commented, as if Castiel had made any comment about it. “And you can’t tell me her plans aren’t pretty depressing.”

“No one’s arguing that,” Castiel agreed.

Dean started the car and they left the car behind with the usual roar of the Impala in their ears. After a few seconds, Dean cleared his throat.

“So Anna’s husband,” he started. “Isn’t he like, some kind of big shot in the hospital where Meg works?”

And suddenly Dean’s invitation started making sense.

“This isn’t some convoluted plan to introduce Meg to Raphael and get him to convince the hospital to not fire her, is it?”

Dean stuttered adorably: “No… I mean… it wouldn’t hurt, but…”

“I’m in,” Castiel cut him off.

“Awesome,” Dean sighed, relieved. Castiel usually was on board of his convoluted plans, but sometimes he protested a little just to keep the appearances.


	7. Change of Subject

Meg showed up at their home with an apple pie on the day of the party.

“I could lie it’s a family recipe, but I actually googled how to make it this morning,” she said. “I’d like to preemptively apologize for the flavor.”

Castiel laughed out loud and guided her to the kitchen to put it away until desserts.

“Deans’ going to love it,” he promised her. “Everybody’s in the backyard if you want to join them. That’s where the beer is too.”

“Ah, don’t mind if I do,” she said, and strutted away to join the crowd.

Castiel stared at the back of her head for a second or two, wondering if she remembered a Fourth of July that was a little bit like this, sixteen years ago. He didn’t dare to ask. Perhaps for him it had been this great defining moment, but for Meg he must have been just one of the several guys she met along her travels. And probably not even the best one.

He chased his thoughts away as he rejoined the crowd in the backyard. Dean was focused on his burgers, with a frown so serious and so comical it made Castiel want to kiss him in the cheek. Ellen and Bobby were on one side of the garden, talking to each other and pretending everyone present didn’t know they had a mutual crush they hadn’t acted on yet. Hael, his youngest sister, was texting on her phone, while Gabriel was passing Meg a can of beer.

“So how do you know Castiel, gorgeous?” his brother was asking her.

“Well, you know, we used to date,” Meg said, apparently amused that Gabriel was already flirting with her within two seconds of meeting her. “Back in high school.”

Gabriel frowned for a moment, obviously reviewing the list of names of Castiel’s girlfriend he got to me.

“No!” he exclaimed when he recognized her. “You’re Meg? Meg Masters?”

“The very same,” Meg smirked.

“Well, you grew up great!” he exclaimed. “Hey, mom! Mom, come here!”

Naomi, who was about to scold Hael for using her phone instead of interacting with people, turned her head towards them.

“This is Meg!” Gabriel said, pointing at her. “You remember Meg, right?”

By Naomi’s horrified expression, it was pretty clear she did.

“Ah, yes, Meg,” she greeted her rigidly. “How are you, dear?”

“Hungry,” Meg replied honestly. “I was promised burgers for dinner, yet my plate is still empty.”

Dean muttered something along the lines of “Can’t rush perfection.”

“Dean, I’m sure they’re perfect,” Castiel insisted. “Come on, before this little get-together becomes a cannibal holocaust.”

Dean groaned and complained, but he finally started getting the burgers off the grill and into the buns prepared on a platter for that purpose. The idea was that everybody could put whatever they wanted in them, therefore the display of vegetables, cheese and several condiments on the table.

Castiel had just started to pass them around when the doorbell rang again.

“I got this,” Meg said, receiving the plate without any hesitation. “You go.”

Castiel made a mental note to thank her for it later and ran to open.

“Hey,” his cousin Anna and her husband Raphael were at the door. “We’re not late, are we?”

“No, not at all,” Castiel promised. “You’re just in time, in fact.”

“Good,” Raphael said, passing Castiel the beers they had brought. “Because I’m starving.”

Castiel smiled politely and closed the door behind them. When he returned to the garden, Dean looked at him with a crooked eyebrow, and Castiel nodded.

It was show time. Castiel waited until everybody had a burger in his stomach to star making presentations.

“You remember Meg, don’t you, Anna?”

“Oh, yes, totally,” Anna said, in an exaggerated tone of voice that indicated she didn’t, but she was trying to be polite. “How you’ve been?”

Meg choked on her burger from trying to swallow too fast to reply. When she finally could stop coughing (after Castiel hit her in the back a couple of times and Dean brought her a glass of water), she kept talking to Anna like there had been no interruption.

“Great,” she coughed a little more. “Just great. And you?”

“Good,” Anna said. “I, uh… I got married last year, actually,” she said, showing off her ring.

She didn’t know if Meg would care or not, but Castiel knew she felt obliged to divulge that information to anybody she might now because her ceremony had been really tiny and a lot of people had been offended when they didn’t receive an invitation. Their Uncle Zachariah still refused to talk to them.

“That’s wonderful!” Meg said. Her smile looked a little forced, in Castiel’s opinion, but if Anna noticed, she gave no indications.

“Yes,” she grinned. “My husband’s over there. Raphael! Come here, sweetie!”

Raphael (who was busy putting way to much barbecue sauce in his burger) turned on his heels and immediately ran to Anna’s side. That was something Castiel would never understand: couples passive-aggressively ordering each other around and expecting every order to be fulfilled. He was so glad Dean and him weren’t like that.

In any case, Raphael was now smiling and shaking Meg’s hand, which meant it was time to pay attention to them.

“So what do you do for a living, Meg?”

“I’m a nurse,” she replied curtly.

“She actually works at your hospital, Raph,” Castiel added.

“ _Your_ hospital?” Meg repeated, her eyes opening wide.

“Raph is one of the St. Mary’s administrators,” Anna explained, with a little smirk.

That was another thing Castiel couldn’t understand: the bragging about one’s partner’s achievements as if they were their own. He knew Dean was proud of him, but he could never imagine him in a social gathering commenting something along the lines of: “Oh, yes, Castiel’s published several books. The most recent one made it to the New York Times best-sellers list!”

Okay, maybe he could imagine it a little bit. He smiled at his boyfriend, who was currently listening to a joke of Gabriel with the patience of a saint.

“I’m just one of the nurses,” Meg said. Her usual confident smile had disappeared, and she looked a little taken aback to be in the presence of the man who was technically her boss’ boss.

“Meg works in the psychiatric ward,” Castiel intervened once more.

“Yeah, I’m not even sure I work there at all anymore,” Meg added. Raphael frowned and adopted his no-nonsense tone when he asked:

“How come?”

Castiel decided to take that moment to rescue Dean.

“Hey, Dean, why don’t you bring out the pie so we can have dessert before the fireworks start?” he suggested, cutting off what, judging by Gabriel’s frustrated face, was clearly meant to be the punch line.

“There’s pie?” Dean asked, his eyes shooting open.

“Meg brought some.”

Dean seemed at the edge of tears of thankfulness. He left his beer on the table and walked away to the house.

“Well, now, little brother,” Gabriel said, not at all discouraged by his lack of public. “Do you want to hear about the monk and the goat?”

“I’m sure that’s hilarious,” Castiel said, hoping the sarcasm would show in his voice. “But I really shouldn’t leave Meg alone.”

He sneaked away before Gabriel could grab him by the arm and physically force him to stay and listen to his joke. Meg had finished telling her story by now.

“They can’t do that!” was the first thing that came out of Raphael’s mouth.

“Well, they… did,” Meg replied.

“Look, if they haven’t fired you by now, that means they really have no reason to and they’re just stalling to find one,” Raphael said. He had no time for half-truths or delicacy. “So that you can’t sue them for firing you.”

“I can do that?” Meg asked, honestly surprised.

“Absolutely,” Raphael said. “Give me until Monday, I’ll have this solved for you.”

“Oh, you really don’t have to do that,” Meg said. Castiel looked at her, a little shocked. The Meg he remembered would never reject something that benefited her out of politeness. That’s why it made a lot more sense when she added: “But if you did, I’ll be forever thankful and give you my firstborn.”

Castiel chuckled. That was definitely more like her.

“Well, if we’re lucky we’re not going to need somebody else’s firstborn,” Anna said, throwing an eloquent look at her husband.

“And change of subject!” Raphael said, with an uncomfortable giggle. “When are you and Dean going to tie the knot, eh, Cas?”

“What makes you think that subject is any less awkward?” Castiel asked, cringing.

Meg suffocated a laugh and looked away. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Dean brining the pie she had made.

“Oh, God, no,” she paled. “Don’t tell me you’re serving that to your family.”

“Unless it’s poisoned, Meg, I don’t see why not,” Castiel replied.

“Right,” Meg laughed, nervously. “I really hope I didn’t put too much arsenic in it.”

Anna and Raphael frowned at her, like they thought making a murder joke was in poor taste or something. Castiel was the only one who laughed. Then again, he had always been the only one who sort of understood Meg’s particular sense of humor.

“Alright, here we go,” Dean said, brandishing a knife. He stopped for a second, staring at the pie, and Castiel could have sworn he saw little tears forming at the edges of his eyes when he blinked. “I’m sorry,” Dean said, putting down the knife. “It’s too perfect, I can’t. Meg, where are you? Come here, I want to hug you.”

“Oh, please, it’s really not that good,” Meg said, flustered at all the attention people were suddenly giving her. But she did accept Dean’s hug with a little smirk. “I just hope it tastes as good as you think it looks.”

“Well, only one way to find out,” Dean said. He started lowering the knife practically in slow motion… and then the fireworks started.

Everybody gathered around the gate, where they could have the best view, and pointed at the sky, clapping and sighing in awe for about five minutes. Castiel had never really understood the appeal of fireworks, but he had to admit they did bring a lot of good memories from hanging around with their family, from summer nights spent in good company, from Meg’s citric perfume invading his nostrils when she leaned down to kiss him…

He shook his head. That wasn’t a memory. Meg was right there by his side, brushing her shoulder against his, as taken by the spectacle of lights as everyone else. She still used the same perfume, something that smelled like lemon and herbs, which was very adequate in his opinion. A floral perfume would never agree with her.

His other shoulder was being brushed by Dean, who smelled of shaving cream and old whiskey and sometimes car oil. He had cut a pretty big slice of the pie for himself (because of course he did), and was now alternating between making soft sounds of pleasure every time he took a bite and looking up at the red, white and blue sparkles that illuminated the neighborhood.

Castiel felt the impulse to put an arm around the both of them, but resisted. That was a perfect moment and he didn’t want to ruin by making any rushed movements.

 

* * *

 

Everybody congratulated Meg on her pie, and nobody spit it out on the bushes when they thought she wasn’t looking, which she considered a total victory. Also a victory was how Raphael assured her he was going to take care of everything and she would have her job back after the holidays. For some reason (maybe because she was Castiel’s friend, or maybe because he’d really liked her pie), he had apparently decided to take her under his wing.

“Don’t worry about anything,” he told her, before he and Anna left.

“Thank you,” Meg said. Honestly, she couldn’t thank him enough. “Thank you so much.”

After the door closed behind them, she realized she was the only one that wasn’t spending the night there. Hael and Naomi were going to cram in the small guest’s room bedroom, while Gabriel was going to drive and take a motel room somewhere.

“Or I’ll just sleep in the car,” he shrugged.

“I don’t understand why you won’t just take the couch,” Castiel complained.

“And have to stand you and Dean cuddling all the damn time? I don’t think so,” Gabriel said, making a disgusted face.

“I like watching them cuddle,” Hael said once Castiel returned inside. “They’re the cutest. Don’t you think so, Meg?”

“They… certainly seem happy,” she said.

She did not like that line of interrogation. It was like Hael (who in Meg’s mind was a six-year-old with a missing tooth who kept trying to convince her brother to go trick-or-treating with her and not that aloof twenty-two-year-old about to start her senior year in college) almost wanted her to say she missed Castiel and wanted him back or something equally dramatic. Indeed, she narrowed her eyes at Meg, in a gesture very similar to Castiel when he focused.

“So what happened to your nose ring?” she asked, changing the subject so suddenly Meg got a little whiplash.

“It was a lip ring,” she corrected her. “I couldn’t wear it at the hospital.”

“Oh, so it’s true then,” Naomi said, and her eyes were opening wide in surprise. “You actually have a job now. That is amazing. I’m so glad you got your life together, dear.”

She said it like she thought it was something that could never, in a million years, happen, no matter how awesome it would be. Like seeing a double rainbow: it was so rare that you just had to stop and appreciate it.

Meg really didn’t care for that sort of interrogation, so she decided it was way past time she went home.

“No, really, I couldn’t have another beer, I have to drive,” she excused herself when Gabriel tried to lure her into staying. “It’s been really nice to see you all again. But I should go home now, avoid the traffic…”

In the end, they let her go. Meg escaped inside of the house and it took her a little too long to close the door, because she managed to hear Naomi saying:

“It’s such a shame she didn’t straighten her life a little earlier. Cas would have…”

“Oh, my God, shut up, mom!” Hael interrupted her, scandalized. “He’s with Dean, and he’s happy!”

“And I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with that!” Naomi replied. Meg walked away before she could hear how Naomi justified herself.

Dean and Castiel had said they would be washing the dishes, so Meg popped her head through the door to tell say goodbye… and immediately wished she hadn’t.

Dean was standing in front of the sink, elbow deep in soap and water, but he didn’t seem to mind it too much, because Castiel was standing right behind him. He had his arms wrapped around Dean’s waist and he was leaning his chin on his boyfriend’s shoulder. They were both smiling, especially when Castiel sank his face in the crook of Dean’s neck and kissed him there. Dean laughed and tried to shake him away with a “Stop!” that clearly meant he didn’t want him to stop.

That was all. There wasn’t anything sexual about it. It was playful, almost innocent, but so, so intimate Meg felt like she might as well have walked in on them furiously fucking over the counter.

At least the mortification she felt was the same. She turned around and quietly tried to disappear, but Dean caught sight of her before she could.

“Meg?” he called her. “Hey, you’re leaving?”

Meg turned around, and desperately wished she didn’t look like she’d just seen what she’d seen. Castiel still had an arm latched around Dean’s waist when he lifted his head towards her.

“Yeah,” Meg blurted out. “Yeah, I gotta… uh, avoid traffic and…”

“My family made you uncomfortable, didn’t they?” Castiel guessed.

“A little bit,” Meg admitted.

Both Castiel and Dean laughed, like they’d seen it happen a lot of times before.

“Go then,” Dean said. “I’d do the same if I were you.”

“Oh, come on they’re not that…” Castiel started, but couldn’t even finish his own lie. This time the three of them laughed together, and for a moment, Meg forgot again about the invisible wall that separated her from the both of them. A wall she had taken a peek over, and now felt like a little guilty about it.

It wasn’t so much that she was jealous of Castel, although there might have been a little bit of that. She was jealous of them both, of what they had. She wanted someone to hug her from behind while doing the dishes and to leave teasing kisses in her neck. She wanted the love she could see in both their eyes when they exchanged looks. And it was a really pathetic feeling, because she was supposed to be a strong independent woman who needed no one.

But she still couldn’t help it.

“Thank you for inviting me.”

“Thank you for the pie, it was awesome,” Dean said. “Bring me more of that and I’ll start serving you beers for free.”

“I’m not sure Ellen would approve of that plan.”

“I won’t tell her if you don’t…”

Castiel looked at the ceiling and then at Meg as if to say: _“Can you believe this dork?”_

Meg chuckled away and waved her hand goodbye.

“I’ll see you around, guys.”

She didn’t want to think that she was running away the moment she crossed the door. But that was pretty much exactly what she was doing.

 

* * *

 

An hour later, she was in her apartment, which meant she changed into her granny pants and fluffy robe. She poured herself some wine (even though she’d had more than enough alcohol at the barbecue and she should really start measuring her intake), and sat in front of her computer.

She hesitated. Was she really that desperate that she would stoop down to finding someone in online dating sites again when she knew from experience the guys she met there were usually a disappointment, both virtually and in real life?

She gulped down her wine. Yes, yes, she was that desperate.

It had been several weeks since she’d open her profile, but her inbox was flooded with messages. She took a deep breath, and prepared for the worst before she started opening.

Creep with a cheesy pick up line she’d read a million times. Creep who wanted her to be his “special nurse”. Creep that had sent her three messages and called her a whore when she didn’t answer them. Creep that called her “baby” right there in his opener. A dick pic. (Had somebody in the history of the Internet got laid by sending an unsolicited picture of their genitals to a complete stranger? Meg doubted it, but it would make an interesting sociological study.) Creep. Creep. Shocker, another dick pic…

_Hello, Meg, how are you? My name is Brady, nice to meet you. I’m not entirely sure how to do this, but I saw your profile and you seem like a very interesting girl. Message me back if you want to talk._

Meg stopped for a moment. The message was nothing special, really, but it was well-redacted and respectful, so it stood out like a sore thumb between all the creeps that had flooded her inbox in those weeks. And maybe she was a little bit drunk, but the bio in his profile made him sound like a pretty interesting human being: a lawyer, who enjoyed outdoor activities and candlelight dinners (that was probably not true, but it sounded nice). And his profile picture was an actual photo of his face: blonde, blue eyes, strong jawline. Just Meg’s type.

_There has to be a catch_ , a little voice in the back of her head warned her.

And there probably was. But Meg didn’t feel like listening to that little voice that night.

_Hey, Brady. How’s life treating you?_

She hesitated for another second before clicking the “send” button.

But then the image of Castiel hugging Dean came to her head, and pushed her to do it.

There. It was sent. Meg poured herself some more wine and hoped she wouldn’t live to regret it.


	8. Dodging Bullets

Meg should know by now that good times rarely lasted, but still, when one of them roll around, she couldn’t help but to let it lull her into a false sense of security.

Raphael kept his promise. She received a call from Doctor Kardisnky on Monday, and by Tuesday she was back making her rounds and checking that none of the patients ate up one of the Monopoly pieces. The fact her life had a schedule again meant her days of wallowing in misery in her couch and drinking way too much were over, but she still found the time to drop by the Roadhouse and have a beer during Dean’s turn. Sometimes Castiel joined them, but since he had started a new book, more often than not, it was just her and Dean.

“I swear, he becomes a dormouse when he’s working on a first draft,” Dean told her. “He sleeps all day, writes all night. He drinks so much coffee I’m surprised he doesn’t have a heart attack he goes at running _at fur o’clock in the morning_ because apparently that helps him think better.”

“Well, at least you’re there to make sure he doesn’t die,” Meg laughed.

“Yeah, but I’m not even sure he registers my presence there half of the time,” Dean complained. “Sometimes I have to practically hand feed him so he doesn’t starve.”

Meg let out a chuckle. Her phone twinkled with a new message. She quickly answered it and returned to his chat with Dean.

“How long does it take him to finish?” she asked.

“Usually it goes on for a couple of months,” Dean explained. “Afterwards he becomes a normal human being again. You ever heard that write drunk, edit sober thing? For him it’s more like write like a zombified version of yourself, edit after you’ve caught up with all your missing sleep.”

Meg laughed again, just as a new message lit up her cellphone screen. This time, after she finished replying, she found Dean staring at her with curiosity.

“Okay, I promised myself I wasn’t going to ask, but I just can’t,” he said. “Who is the guy?”

“What makes you think it’s a guy?”

“Girl, then,” Dean said, rising his hands. “Hey, I’ll be the last person to judge you.”

Meg rolled her eyes, but kept her mouth shut.

“Oh, come on,” Dean insisted. “You got a glimmer in your eye, this… person, they must be special.”

Meg didn’t say anything for a second or two. For one thing, she suspected Dean was the kind of person that would lecture her on the dangers of dating strangers on the Internet, like she didn’t know. But other than that, there really was no reason not to tell him. It wasn’t like it was a big shameful secret. Most couples those days met through online dating, it wasn’t just for sorry losers that couldn’t get a date in real life like her.

“It’s a guy,” she admitted in the end.

“Ah,” Dean wiggled his eyebrows, and Meg tried to punch him in the arm, but he got out of her reach laughing. “Anybody I know?” He froze and he stared at her in horror. “It’s not Gabriel, is it?”

“No,” Meg rolled her eyes. “Although, what would be so wrong about me dating Gabriel?”

“Nothing,” Dean replied. “Except that Castiel and I would have to constantly keep an eye on you to make sure you don’t kill and bury somebody just for kicks.”

“Nah, if you kill someone you have to throw them in a lake or a river with something heavy or burn the body,” Meg said. “Water and fire are the most efficient way to destroy forensic evidence.”

Dean blinked at her.

“I’m… a nurse,” Meg explained, as if that excused her having that sort of knowledge.

“Okay,” Dean said, shaking his head. “You’re trying to distract me. Who is the guy?”

“Just… some guy,” Meg said, cautiously, but it was obvious that Dean was like a dog with a bone: he wasn’t going to let it go until he’d got some more details. “His name’s Brady. He’s from Iowa. We met online like a month ago and we’ve been… chatting.”

“Chatting?” Dean repeated. “Is that what you crazy kids call it these days?”

Meg shrugged. Honestly, she didn’t want to share anymore, because she had already started to notice the subtly concern in Dean’s expression.

“He’s… an actual real person, right?” he asked. “He isn’t catfishing you to kidnap you and murder you on the side of an abandoned road?”

“Yeah, because that’s a question you ask everyone you meet,” Meg said, slightly irritated at his overprotectiveness. “ _‘Hey, you don’t happen to be a serial killer, do you?’_ ”

“I’m serious,” Dean groaned.

“Me too,” Meg assured him. “Look, Dean, I’ve been around, okay? I’ve had my fair share of nasty boyfriends. My gut tells me this guy is alright, and my gut is never wrong.”

Well, except because that was not what her gut was telling her, and she had just decided to ignore it, because what did her gut know? Brady was a gentleman, he was nice and respectful, he made her laugh and was always considerate when she couldn’t text him back right away. There was absolutely no reason for her to mistrust him at all. A part of her kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, but she didn’t tell that to Dean.

He didn’t look very convinced, but in the end, he just sighed.

“Alright, fine,” he said. “As long as this guy stays in Iowa, it’s no big deal, right?”

“Right,” Meg said, and took a swig of her beer. Dean realized immediately that she was all too anxious to drop the subject.

“Meg?”

Meg bit the inside of her cheek, but again, she relented:

“Fine. He’s coming over next weekend to supervise a deal from his business,” she confessed. “If everything goes as planned, he might be moving here before the end of the year. Might. _Might_ , okay?” she remarked when Dean crunched up his face in concern. “And even if he does, it’s not like I’m jumping headfirst into dating him.”

Dean crooked an eyebrow.

“I promised him we would have dinner while he’s here,” Meg groaned. “Satisfied?”

“No, no at all,” Dean said, shaking his head. “You have to be careful with these things, Meg.”

“I am being super careful!” Meg protested. “It’s going to be in a public restaurant, I’m going to be bringing my own car… and you know what? You’re not my father,” she added, because she had run out of arguments. “You don’t have to worry about me.”

“I know I don’t _have_ to,” Dean replied. “But I _do_. Because that is what friends do for one another.”

Meg stared at him, disarmed. That was completely new. She had always had trouble making friends or keeping contact with the few she had because she didn’t stick anywhere long enough for it. She had no idea how to treat them or what to expect from them. She had never imagined Dean considered her as such. Yes, she drank his beer and they joked about other clients and his boyfriend, but friends? That was a whole other level.

“And you’re Cas’ friend,” he added, trying to defuse the suddenly awkward situation. “So yeah, I would care if something happened to you because you were flirting with some guy from the Internet you know nothing about other than what he’s told you.”

Meg sighed deeply.

“Listen, it’s going to be okay,” she guaranteed him. “If it makes you happy, I will text you after the date is done and I’m home.”

“Better call me,” Dean said. “Anyone can send a text message, but they can’t fake your voice.”

“And you would recognize my voice anywhere, is what you’re saying?” Meg teased him.

“I’ve become a bit of an expert in your drunken slurs,” Dean pointed out. “I’ll be able to tell for sure if you just drank a bit too much or if the guy slipped you something.”

“What kind of creep do you think he is?” Meg asked, but Dean didn’t laugh at the joke.

“I will consider him a creep until he’s proven he isn't.”

 

* * *

 

That chat with Dean definitely put red flags all over Meg’s preparations for the date, and at first she was angry at him for ruining her mood. Who the hell was he, anyway? She was an adult woman, dammit, she knew how to take care of herself.

But the more she thought about it, the more she realized Dean’s concerns were not only partly legitimate, but that also came from a place of sincere affection. He cared for her, and it was really hard for Meg to let him because it had been such a long time since the last time that happened, but in any case, it spoke volumes about Dean’s character.

It was really easy to see why Castiel had chosen him.

So Meg decided to be a smart girl about it all and actually listened to him. She had her cellphone with her at all times, she made sure to ask in advance what was their busiest hour at the restaurant she chose, and parked very near the entry so as to make a swift escape in case it was needed. She also chose some sensible shoes, because running in stilettos had never been her forte.

Brady showed up with unnerving punctuality at eight o’clock, and what was better than that, he looked exactly like in his pictures.

“Meg?” he asked when he approached her table, giving her a million dollars smile. “Wow, you’re even more stunning than in your pictures.”

So he had a good opener.

The dinner went surprisingly well. Meg let him talk about his firm and the business they handled and how great they were going. He told her about his parents who were still married after twenty years and how he aspired to have a relationship like that, and some mad anecdotes that involved a chicken and his initiation in the fraternity he’d been a member of during his college years.

“But enough about me,” he said halfway through their spaghetti. “What about you? You must have some interesting stories.”

“Well…” Meg shrugged a little. She had what people like Naomi (and she was sure Brady’s parents were people like Naomi) would call a “colorful background”, and she wasn’t exactly sure that would be an interesting conversation topic during the first fucking date. “Remember how I told you I wasn’t working right now? Well, I’ve gone back to my place in the hospital.”

“That’s wonderful!” Brady said, and raised his cup to make a toast. Meg made sure to just wet her lips with her drink, because she’d already had a glass before and she had to drive.

“Yeah, it’s great. A friend of a friend called in a favor…”

“What friend?”

And Meg found out an actual topic of conversation that didn’t involve all the hours she’d spent driving across the country. It was a little annoying, because even while she was in the middle of a date she couldn’t stop talking about Castiel and Dean, but the option was revealing what a mess she had been for the better part of her life.

“… and then it turned out that Castiel’s Dean boyfriend now,” she ended, with a chuckle.

But Brady didn’t laugh.

“Oh, so you always keep in touch with all your ex-boyfriends?” he asked.

Meg crooked an eyebrow. That had been his takeaway from the story?

“Well, no, not really,” she shrugged. Mostly because she’d had a lot of boyfriends and she’d quite literally bolted out on a couple of them. “Just… Cas. It was a long time ago, anyway.”

Why did she feel the need to justify herself to Brady? There was absolutely nothing wrong with Castiel and her being friends. However, Brady nodded like that was exactly the answer he wanted to hear, and Meg felt a little angry. She didn’t know how or why, but she felt like she had been slightly manipulated into something.

“And do you… approve of their lifestyle?” Brady continued to ask. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m not homophobic…”

“Stop,” Meg said, raising an open hand. “When people say that, they always follow it with something homophobic, and we’re having a really nice conversation here. Don’t ruin it.”

“Oh… okay,” Brady said. He seemed surprised that Meg would interrupt him like that. “I’m just saying… it doesn’t seem really healthy. You do know that people who practice homosexuality are more likely to have… diseases, right?”

And there was the other shoe, crashing on the ground with the devastating power of an atomic bomb.

“Are you going to have desert?” the kind waitress asked them.

“That won’t be necessary,” Meg said before Brady could say a word. “Just the check, please.”

“Are you on a diet or something?” Brady asked after the waitress left their table. “Because you don’t really need it, you know, you look fine the way you are. I like my women with some meat on their bones.”

Meg really needed someone to pat her on the shoulder and congratulate her, because it was a testament to her self-control that she hadn’t punch something. Or someone.

“You know, you were a lot nicer on your texts.”

Was that truth though? Or had she just been ignoring the shit he had been saying because she was desperate for some attention? She would have to look back on herself very carefully as soon as she was alone.

Brady looked a little like she had slapped him on the face.

“What…? Was it something I said?”

Before Meg could go off at him to let him know _exactly_ what he’d said, the waitress showed up with the check.

“Did you find everything to your liking?” she asked, with a smile.

“Yes, everything was…” Meg began, as she opened her purse to fish out her wallet, but it was Brady’s turn to interrupt her.

“Oh, Meg, please, let me,” he said, snatching the check away before Meg could see how much it was.

“That’s not necessary,” Meg said. She didn’t know why, but that sudden show of chivalry annoyed her. “We can split it. It’s no trouble.”

She reached out for the check, but Brady obnoxiously kept it away.

“Meg, really, it doesn’t bother me,” he insisted. “I know that as a nurse, you must be very… financially austere.”

“I’m sorry, what?” Meg asked.

“Okay… I’ll leave you to it and return when you’re ready,” said the waitress before making a swift escape. Meg couldn’t blame her. She wished she could do the same thing.

“It’s nothing to be ashamed of,” Brady continued, blissfully unaware that Meg was two seconds away from grabbing his head and smashing it against the wall. “It’s a known fact that women choose lower paying jobs while they wait to meet their husbands, so they can leave them more easily to dedicate time to their families.”

“What ass-backwards nineteen fifties logic is that?” Meg asked. She didn’t bother to keep her voice down, and as a consequence, many people turned around to stare at them. That finally seemed to have some sort of effect in Brady.

“Meg, please, keep your voice down,” he said, while a subtle shade of red colored his cheeks.

Meg used his distraction to recover the check and put some bills inside before handing it back to Brady so he could cover the rest.

“You’ve… put too much,” he indicated.

“That’s the tip,” Meg explained. “Somehow you don’t strike as the kind of person that leaves tips.”

She still was talking a little louder than necessary, so if even if Brady had wanted to argue, he was shamed into silence by all those people staring at them and judging them. Finally, he paid his part and Meg grabbed her coat before he could even suggest helping her put it on.

“Well, this has been…” Brady said, as they walked outside the restaurant.

“You know, Brady, I don’t think we should see each other again,” Meg cut him off. “No offense, but I don’t believe we’re that good of a match after all.”

She took out her keys and practically ran towards the door of her car before Brady could even react.

“Oh, come on, Meg,” he begged, going after her. Meg had already opened the door and locked the door behind her. “Tell me what I did wrong,” he insisted, leaning over the window. “We got along so well virtually, I don’t understand…”

“Yeah, that’s another thing,” Meg said, hastily putting the keys in the contact and starting the engine. “Let’s not write to each other again. Don’t take it personally.”

Brady had exactly two seconds to get out of the way or else get his ass run over by an escaping Meg. She didn’t breathe calmly again until he was far away in her rear view mirror.

 

* * *

 

Meg’s apartment really didn’t have much going for it. It was far away from her job, the kitchen was tiny, and there was a tree right next to her bedroom’s window that guaranteed that a bat or a rat or some other vermin was going to get inside one day or the other.

But the rent was cheap. And it had a bathtub.

In fact, the rent also wasn’t that great, but the bathtub was a gift sent from high above. Meg had been soaking in it for about fifteen minutes, trying to scrub the smell of “pathetic asshole” still clinging to her skin from sitting across Brady during an entire hour when her cellphone rang.

She leaned over the edge of the tub to pick it up.

“Hello?”

“You didn’t call!” Dean scolded her on the other side. “Not even a text to say if you’d got home okay!”

“I was going to call,” Meg lied. Actually, she had completely forgotten, but still. “I have just got home, dude. Give me a break.”

“There you go, she’s home,” she heard Castiel’s voice in the background. “Happy now?”

“Well, yeah, I guess,” Dean commented. “But it’s still early. Date didn’t go well?”

“What if it had? You’d be calling me in the middle of it right now. Have you thought about that?” Meg snapped. Castiel chuckled in the background and Dean let out an embarrassed grumble. Meg relaxed in the tub. Despite everything, it was really nice to know they cared. “But you have no idea the bullet I just dodged.”


	9. Scorn

There was a mild emergency in the psychiatric ward a couples of weeks after Meg’s disastrous date. They couldn’t find Mr. Victor Rogers, a senile old man who thought he was a prisoner of war sometimes, so he regularly tried making daring escapes from the facility. This time was the furthest he ever got: Meg found him right outside the hospital’s door and grabbed him by the arm.

“Mr… General Rogers,” she said, remembering than when in one of those episodes, he was most likely to answer by that name. “Sir.”

“Who are you?” General Rogers blinked at Meg a couple of times.

“Your nurse, sir,” Meg said. “You need to come with me now.”

“Where are we?” the old man asked, still refusing to move. “I’m trying to remember, but I can’t… my men and I… we were in this prison, we tried to escape…”

“Yes, sir,” Meg replied, immediately. “You made it. This is a military base belonging to the United States of America. You are all fine, but a little dehydrated. That’s why your mind’s a little hazy and you need to come inside.”

“Oh,” the old man said, and his little eyes lit up. “Then it’s fine. I think me and my boys will go home after this. We’ve earned it.”

“That sounds fantastic,” Meg said, as she gently led him back inside. “You’ve provided this country a great service. Do you have a girl waiting for you back home?”

“My Daisy,” General Rogers showed her a toothless smile. “Prettiest girl in the whole town. We’re gonna get hitched as soon as I return.”

“Wonderful news!” Meg said. They finally crossed the doors to the dayroom. “You should write her a letter to tell her you’re coming back.”

“Yes!” he said, enthusiastic. “What a great idea!”

A couple of other nurses walked towards them to help her, and Meg finally let go of General Rogers with a sigh. As always, she couldn’t help but to feel a little sorry for him. Once she had asked his son about it: it turned out Daisy had been dead for at least ten years.

“Good job, Masters,” Nurse Missouri Moseley, a large, black woman with a no-nonsense attitude, congratulated her when she returned. “I still have no idea how he slipped past us.”

“Well, he was on a mission,” Meg replied, with a shrug.

“Soon we won’t have to deal with his missions anymore,” Nurse Moseley said. Meg looked at her a bit horrified, so she hurriedly clarified: “Oh, because his son is moving him to a specialized nursing home. They can take better care of him there.”

“Oh,” Meg sighed in relief. “Then it’s okay.”

She went to look for some charts, with Missouri following her closely.

“You get too involved with these patients, Masters,” she continued to tell her.

“Well, isn’t that why we’re here for?” Meg replied. “To take care of them?”

“You eventually run out of empathy,” Nurse Moseley pointed out. “It’s a scientific fact. You care too much, you end up exhausting yourself and not caring about anything.”

Meg shook her head, slightly amused. Not because she didn’t think Missouri was wrong. Otherwise, she wouldn’t end up drinking in Dean’s bar every other night, thought lately she hadn’t found it the energy to do that. But because she still thought she was far away from that limit. Though not too much.

“At least tell me you have a nice boy to go home to when your shift is over,” Nurse Moseley inquired. Meg shook her head and grabbed the pills she needed to distribute between the patients. “A girl, then. _Someone_.”

“You know, I’ve actually been thinking about getting a cat,” Meg replied, nonchalantly. “Got to start collecting them early if I want to be a proper crazy cat lady by the time I'm forty.”

Nurse Moseley stared at her with disapproval.

Well, it wasn’t Meg’s fault that the actual answer to that question was incredibly depressing. After their date, Brady had continued to text her for a few days, but upon receiving nothing but silence from Meg, he seemed to have taken the hint. In any case, Meg was done with dating sites, until the next time she got desperate, that was. She hoped it wouldn’t be any time soon.

“Meg, Meg,” Rudy, one of those patients who were in and out constantly for paranoid hallucinations, grabbed her by the shoulder. “They’re at it again.”

“I know, I’ve seen them,” Meg replied, very seriously. “Here, try these,” she added, handing him the pills. “They’ll make you invisible to them, so they can get you.”

“Thank you,” Rudy sighed, relieved. “You’re a true friend.”

He swallowed them down and went to hide in his favorite corner. With a little bit of luck, he’d be stable again in a couple of days.

Just as Meg was finishing her rounds, her cellphone rang for what felt like the first time in ages.

“I’ve finished my first draft!” Castiel’s voice announced cheerily on the other side before she could even muster a _‘hello’_.

“That’s awesome,” Meg said, and she was sincerely happy, but so tired it came out sounding sarcastic. She made a pause as she opened her locker and tried again: “Congratulations!”

“I’m buying drinks for everyone at the Roadhouse tonight, and you’re coming,” he added. It wasn’t a question.

Meg cringed and hurriedly tried to look for an excuse not to.

“I don’t think I’m dressed appropriately for the occasion,” she said. It was a lame excuse, and they both knew it.

“Come on, Meg,” Castiel said. She could almost hear him rolling his eyes. “You have not gone out since that date with the douche, and Dean tells me you have not been going to the bar as much as you used to.”

“Do you two just monitor all of my movements as a hobby?”

“I wouldn’t say it’s a hobby,” he said, but he didn’t clarify _what_ it was. “Please. It’s going to be fun.”

Meg closed her locker and sat down for a moment.

“I don’t know,” she sighed. “Are you sure you want me there, Clarence?”

The old nickname came to her lips naturally, without even thinking about it. She didn’t mean to call him that; she didn’t think she _should_ be calling him that. Because back in the day, she’d called him “Clarence” the same way Dean called him “baby” now. She really wasn’t allowed that intimacy with him anymore.

But if Castiel found that uncomfortable or inappropriate, he showed no signs of it.

“Of course I want you there,” Castiel replied. “We’re friends.”

Meg didn’t answer. She didn’t think she could do it without betraying the sudden burning sensation in her chest and the lump on her throat.

“Meg? We’re friends,” Castiel repeated, almost as if there was someone he needed to convince besides her.

“Of course we are,” she replied, after taking a deep breath. “And if you’re sure, well… I just need to make quick stop at home and change first.”

“Dean and I will pick you up,” Castiel offered immediately. “You know, so you can drink all you want and not worry about who’s driving.”

“You’re never going to let me live that down, are you?” Meg asked, with a chuckle.

“Never. See you in a bit.”

Meg sat completely still for a moment. It was painful that Castiel had so thoroughly moved on from their relationship, and she was stupid as hell for feeling like that, but as always, she needed a second or two to get her act together. She guesses that, at some point or another, she could really move on just as Castiel had and be an adult about the whole thing. Not with the likes of Brady, of course. But still.

Also, Missouri was right. She needed some sort of distraction.

The Impala was parked right outside her building, and the guys were waiting for her right at the door. Meg supposed she should be surprised, but she really wasn’t. Castiel was still as painstakingly punctual as she remembered.

“Hey, girl,” Dean greeted when she got out of her and walked towards them.

“You’re really set on getting me to your party, huh?” Meg asked, shaking her head.

“Absolutely,” Castiel declared. “Also, you’ve seen our place. It’s only fair we see yours.”

“Ah, morbid curiosity. That makes more sense,” she laughed, as she opened the door for them. “Fair warning: it’s on the third floor, and there’s no elevator.”

“We’re young and we’re strong,” Dean joked. “We can take it.”

*

Well, Castiel could take it. Dean was practically wheezing right on the second floor.

“You guys… just go on without me…” he gasped, sitting down in one of the steps with his face all red. “I’ll… I’ll catch up.”

“See, this is why I keep telling you to come running with me,” Castiel scolded him. “And to lay off the burgers.”

“Don’t know… what you mean,” Dean replied between puffs. “I’m perfectly fine… just… these stairs are awful. How do you climb them every day?”

“I think about my million dollar legs and how I want to keep them in shape,” Meg replied, with a shrug. “Come on, let’s go before Suzie comes out and threatens us with her shotgun for staying too long in the stairs.”

“Who’s Suzie?” Dean asked, but the other two were already disappearing on their way to the third floor.

In any case Dean didn’t have to wait long. The door of one of the second floor apartments opened and a woman with gray hair and a mean expression stared at him. From the shotgun Dean could see leaned against the wall behind her, he took it she was Suzie.

“Hi,” Dean tried to greet her with his most charming smile.

“The stairs are not for you to sit, boy,” she groaned, obviously not impressed.

“S-sorry, I was just… taking a break,” Dean said, but he stood up immediately. He really wasn’t planning on getting shot that day.

“And if you’re going to stay long, tell Masters to keep it down,” Suzie continued. “It’s enough I had to hear you thrashing the place all morning.”

“Uh… we weren’t here this morning,” Dean frowned.

“Well, someone was.”

It was an innocent enough observation and it didn’t necessarily mean that someone had been at Meg’s apartment, precisely. But for some reason, all of Dean’s alarm went off the way they hadn’t gone off since the night Meg mentioned Brady for the first time.

Without thinking it twice and without looking at Suzie again, he stood up and ran up the last flight of stairs. He got just in time to see Meg open her door. Her smile disappeared at the same time her eyes opened in horror. She let out a scream at the same time Castiel’s jaw dropped open, but he reacted quickly. He grabbed Meg by the arm and pulled her closer to him.

“Don’t look,” he said, as he forced her to hide her face on his chest. “Don’t look at that.”

Dean should have probably not looked either, but he still popped his head through the door anyway.

Somebody had taken the time to utterly destroy Meg’s living room. They had stabbed the couch and the pillows and spread its stuffing all over. The TV was on the floor with the screen smashed. In red aerosol, they’d painted the words “FUCKING WHORE” in very big letters on the wall, so it would be the first thing she saw when she opened the door.

Suzie appeared on the hallway, shotgun in hand.

“What happened? I heard someone scream,” she said.

In another occasion, Dean would have found it endearing that the old lady’s first reaction when hearing her neighbor scream was run headfirst into the danger with her shotgun. But now his blood was boiling over. He was going to find whoever had done that and…

“I’m fine,” Meg said behind him. “I’m fine, Cas, really.”

She had taken a step back, but Castiel was still grabbing her by the elbow, as if he feared she was going to faint if he let go. But Meg was a tough cookie: she was pale and obviously shaken, but when she spoke, her voice was firm;

“Suzie, can we use your phone?”

*

Since it wasn’t an emergency, police took their time to arrive, which meant they got to spend a lovely half hour sitting in Suzie’s living room, sipping her tea, and making awkward conversation about her cat until sheriff’s Mills and Hanscum showed up. Meg was actually glad they were two women, because for some reason she didn’t think a guy would have taken the break-in as seriously as them.

“And you didn’t see anything?” Sheriff Hanscum interrogated Suzie on the hallway.

“If I had, you can rest assure the bastard would be lying in the coroner’s office with one of my bullets in their brain,” Suzie replied, caressing her shotgun (which she refused to let go of).

“Yikes, lady, no need to be so aggressive,” Sheriff Hanscum muttered, but she still wrote down her declaration, before taking out a little camera from her coat and nodding to her partner.

“We’re going to walk through it, honey,” Sheriff Mills told Meg, in a calming. “And I know it might be difficult, but if you see anything missing, let us know. That way we can discard robbery.”

“Right, because a robber would waste time writing that on the wall,” Dean groaned.

“Dean, let them do their job,” Castiel said.

“Listen to your better half, Winchester,” Sheriff Mills told him. “Meg, if you don’t think you can do it…”

“I can do it,” Meg assured her. “I’m fine.”

Of course her knees still trembled when she was forced to actually confront the chaos her cozy apartment had become. The living room was just the tip of the iceberg: they had smashed all the plates, mugs and glasses in her kitchen, they had torn out the pages of her books, her laptop had been hammered into pieces and her mattress had been stabbed and the stuffing disseminated all over her room’s floor along with her shoes. Most of her clothing had been slashed, with a special attention to her two good dresses. There was another graffiti over her bed (“SLUT”) and yet another one in the bathroom (“BITCH”). The cabin mirror was broken, her jewelry was on the toilet and all her shampoo, toothpaste and even liquid soap had been emptied on the bathtub.

That was ridiculous, but at least the asshole who did had been very meticulous. Nothing seemed to be missing, just completely destroyed. Sheriff Mills nodded like she had already expected that answer.

“Is there someone who could be angry at you?” she asked, escorting her back to the hallway and closing the door behind her so Meg wouldn’t have to see all that. “Someone you might have scorned? Maybe an ex?”

“My last ex was two years ago,” Meg mumbled. There had been other guys after that, of course, but nothing serious.

“What about the douche?” Castiel suggested.

“Yeah, what was his name?” Dean added. “Brandon, Brad?”

“Brady,” Meg said, her mind finally lighting up. “Yeah, we had a bad date and I sort of blew him off afterwards.”

“This looks a little excessive for just a bad date,” Sheriff Hanscum commented.

“He was a _major_ douche,” Castiel specified.

“He’s not wrong,” Meg admitted, but the more she thought about it, the less she believed it could have been Brady. It was just too violent and too personal. Brady was the kind of person who anonymously called to your job to try and get you fired, not the kind who broke into your apartment. Besides, as far she knew he was still in Iowa. Oh, God, was he really even for Iowa? Had he been lying about that? What if she was wrong and he really was dangerous? She did have had a bad feeling about him all along.

“We need to investigate every possibility,” Sheriff Mills said. “Does this Brady person have a last name?”

“We didn’t get to know each other that well,” Meg admitted. “Uh, but he has an account on the same dating site I do. Maybe you can track him down from there.”

“We’ll try that,” Sheriff Mills promised.

Sheriff Hanscum took note of everything and closed her notepad.

“Don’t feel bad,” she told Meg, putting a consoling hand over her shoulder. “You never know with these Internet types. I met my ex-husband in seriffsconection dot com, and he turned out to be a major douche too.”

Sheriff Mills snorted, as if what her partner had said was the understatement of the century.

“Do you have somewhere to stay?” she asked Meg.

Meg was tempted to protest that she wanted to stay home, but she guessed that was an active crime scene now. And, besides, she had no mattress.

“I guess I could… go to a motel…”

“No way,” Dean said, at the same time Castiel said: “Absolutely not.”

“You’re staying with us,” Castiel determined, after exchanging a look with his boyfriend.

“Guys, I can’t…”

“Meg, please, we insist,” Castiel cut off her protest. “We couldn’t leave you alone tonight.”

“And if that asshole shows up, I really want to introduce him to my fist,” Dean added, crackling his knuckles.

“Huh,” Suzie commented. “I don’t know if those two are actually good, or if they just look good by comparison of the nutjob who did that,” she said, pointing at the close door. “But I would hold on to them if I were you, girl.”

“Thanks, Suzie,” Meg sighed. She rubbed her temples, too tired to keep denying she wanted someone else to take care of her for a little while. “I have a bag in my locker at the hospital. We should go get it, because I pretty literally have nothing else to wear.”

“We’ll go there first,” Dean said. “And afterwards… I guess we’re having a sleepover.”


	10. Sleepover

Dean and Castiel’s house was just as orderly as Meg remembered it, which made her wonder which one of the two would be the neat freak. She remembered Castiel’s room being a complete mess of books and clothes spread pretty much everywhere, so unless he’d had a drastic personality change with the years (from what she seemed so far, it didn’t seem to be the case), Dean was the one making sure everything was cozy and welcoming. Which was a total contrast with his macho guy who fixed cars and tended bars and threatened to beat up assholes, but she guessed that made that trait of him all the more endearing.

“Come on in,” he said, as he opened the door for her (he insisted on carrying her bag for her). “ _Nuestra casa es tu casa_.”

“I can’t thank you enough, guys.”

“You’re very welcome,” Castiel said. “And of course, you may stay for as long as you need to.”

Meg grimaced. She couldn’t even begin to imagine what it would be like dealing with her very tiny renter’s insurance, because technically nothing had been stolen and she wasn’t even sure what that jerk had done to her apartment was covered.

“You know, I’m actually glad I took your invitation now,” she told Castiel as they escorted her to the guest room. It was like they thought something would attack her if they let her out of their sight for even a minute. “I can’t imagine what it would have been getting home alone and finding that.”

“You should probably stop thinking about it,” Castiel recommended. “It will only stress you more.”

Meg wished it was that easy. Every time she blinked, she still could see the graffiti (“FUCKING WHORE”) flashing behind her eyes.

“You’re still pale,” Dean pointed out. “I’ll make dinner so we can all eat something, okay?”

The nurse in Meg knew he was right: it was probably best to face this kind of situation with a full stomach, because that way her brain would be better focused and she’d be able to analyze more options. On the other hand, when she sat down on the bed, it was like a ton of bricks was suddenly dropped on her head. She simply felt exhausted, and she didn’t think she could be sitting much longer, much less move her hands enough to put something into her mouth.

“I really appreciate that,” she said. “But I just rather… tuck in early.”

“You sure?” Castiel asked.

“Yeah, I need to sleep it off,” Meg said. Sleeping was good, too. Her unconscious mind would probably come up with a solution for her current homeless situation. “I’ll be okay in the morning, I swear.”

“Very well,” Castiel accepted, although he didn’t look very convinced. “If you need anything at all, please don’t hesitate to ask us.”

Meg assured them she would, although she had no intention to actually do it. She was not used to that much kindness and the guys had already gone above and beyond for her. She was not going to abuse their hospitality.

As soon as they closed the door, Meg turned off the light. She barely managed to take off her shoes before she practically fainted on top of the covers.

*

Castiel had to admit, Dean had been remarkably great at handling the situation. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust his boyfriend in a crisis, but usually he wasn’t the best at decision-making when he was under pressure. He immediately jumped into fierce protector mode and damned everything else. However, this time he had been great, supporting Meg, pulling his strings with Sheriff Mills to try and get her to make the case her top priority (“Don’t even worry about it, kid,” she had said. “Oh, and say hi for me to that old drunk of Singer when you see him.”), and offering to make Meg dinner.

“Well, yeah, I was just trying to be nice,” he said, cutely embarrassed when Castiel pointed it out. “Good karma and all.”

“I’m just saying it’s impressive, because just a month ago, you didn’t even like Meg,” Castiel pointed out, as they undressed for bed. “Her pie won you over?”

Dean chuckled a little, but Castiel thought he was avoiding his gaze a little.

“It’s not that I didn’t like Meg,” he said. “I just… didn’t like _you_ liking her. That you have liked her at some point in the past. Does that make sense?”

“More than you think,” Castiel said, sliding underneath the covers. “I’m glad you’re over those feelings now.”

Instead of answering, Dean put the grey shirt he used to sleep on and turned off the night-lamp before sliding in bed next to Cas and passing an arm around his waist.

“And what about you?” he asked, hiding his face in Castiel’s shoulder. “Do you like her now? I imagine she’s changed a lot.”

“Not as much as you think,” Castiel laughed. “She’s still as brave as I remember. Today she held herself together magnificently. If I had come home to find what she found… I would have probably passed out from the impression.”

“Right,” Dean laughed. “Because you’re an impressionable damsel in distress.”

He was being sarcastic, of course. He had seen Castiel angry and he knew how scary he could actually be.

“Oh, but you’d have been there to catch me in your arms,” Castiel joked, turning his head so now their noses were grazing each other. “Wouldn’t you?”

“Absolutely,” Dean said. “And then I would have bravely carried you in my arms to safety.”

“Mmh… my knight in shining armor,” Castiel laughed. It wasn’t until much later that he realized Meg had called him that first.

When he opened his eyes again it was two in the morning and he sat up with a jolt because he’d just thought of about a line that would be perfect on chapter three and he needed to write it down _right then_. In any other occasion, he would have just turned on the light and scribbled it in the notebook he kept by the bed and deal with Dean complaining about it in the morning. But one look at his boyfriend indicated him Dean was sleeping deeper than he had in several days (he was prone to waking up to the slightest sound), and it would have been really mean of Castiel waking him up.

So instead, he got up and tiptoed out of the room as silently as he could. He didn’t even dare to turn on the lights of the hallway, so climbing down the stairs was an adventure to say the least. He pushed the door of his studio open…

There was someone standing by the window. He screamed and grabbed a paperweight, but then the person turned on the lamp and looked at him with a frown.

“Where you going to throw that at me?” Meg asked.

“No,” Castiel lied, putting his improvised weapon down. “But you scared me! What are you doing here?”

“Woke up, couldn’t go back to sleep,” she shrugged. “Figured you had a stash of books somewhere. I wasn’t wrong,” she said, pointing at Castiel’s shelves on the side. “So this is where the magic happens, huh?”

“I’m sorry?” Castiel asked, putting down the paperweight back on the little table by the door where he kept a picture of Dean.

“Where you write your stuff,” Meg said, pointing at his desk. It was a chaotic mountain of papers and notebooks. His computer must have been buried in there somewhere, and suddenly he remembered what he came down there for. But it didn’t matter now: Meg’s sudden presence had completely erased the phrase he had been thinking about.

And he couldn’t even be mad. With her hair messy and loose over her shoulders, her sweatpants and oversized shirt (the only clothes that had apparently survived the attack of her apartment), she actually reminded him a lot more of the girl with the nose ring he had met way back then, the one who couldn’t care less about the future and who laughed so freely all the time.

He wanted to ask her exactly at what point she had stopped being her, but he suspected that was a long story, and Meg probably didn’t want to tell it. Not that night at least.

“How come I never read anything of yours?” she asked, turning again towards his shelves.

“I use a pseudonym,” Castiel replied. “James Milton.”

“What? The guy who writes those awful detective stories?” Meg laughed. She turned to Castiel, and the smile disappeared immediately. “Oh. I mean, they’re… entertaining. I liked the one about the monkey.”

“Ah, yes,” Castiel looked up at the ceiling. “I worked really hard on the one about the monkey.”

“Sorry,” Meg cringed. “You know I’m no literary critic.”

“It’s fine,” Castiel assured her, taking a step towards her. “They’re no master pieces, I am aware of that. But they pay the bills. They bought this house,” he said, with a gesture around. “I really can’t complain about Mr. Milton’s career.”

“I guess you can’t,” Meg nodded. She looked at the books again, almost as she expected to find one of his between the titles. “What about those stories about elves and swords you used to like?”

“Those were Dungeon and Dragons scenarios,” Castiel smiled at the memory. “Remember that time I invited you over and tried to teach you how to play?”

“You did?” Meg narrowed her eyes, like she was trying to remember but couldn’t.

“Five minutes into it, you declared it the most boring game in the universe.”

“Oh, that one!” she snapped her fingers. “Yeah, I actually wasn’t bored. I was disappointed because I thought Dungeon and Dragons was code for making out.”

She turned her attention to his desk and started moving the papers around while Castiel tried to wrap his head around that revelation.

“How in the world did you reach that conclusion?” he asked, so mesmerized he couldn’t even ask her to stop going through his drawers.

“Well, I had been hitting on you from day one,” she replied. “I thought I’d finally got through to you.”

“You didn’t… what? Really?” Castiel stared at her in complete disbelief.

Meg had apparently found what she was looking for in the drawers, because a smirk appeared on her face.

“I knew you still had these,” she muttered, raising his old pair of black rim glasses. He hadn’t seen them in years. He didn’t actually remember he had them, but Meg apparently remembered perfectly his hoarding habits. She looked incredibly pleased with herself as she opened them up and put them on. “Oh, you took out the crystals!”

“You were not hitting on me from day one,” Castiel argued. “You tried to smoke in my house, you…”

“Come on,” she chuckled. “Did you really think I didn’t know how to pronounce Hemingway?”

She was standing behind his desk, wearing his glasses and smiling, while Castiel completely readjusted his perception of that entire period of his life.

“You…” he started.

“Honestly, it took an incredibly amount of patience for me not to give up, but I figured you kept sending mixed signals ‘cause you didn’t know how to send clear ones,” she continued. “I was really starting to think you weren’t interested, until you kissed me that day after the movies.”

Castiel smiled, suddenly remembering how nervous he had been, how sure he was that Meg would push him away and tell him he was too much of an idiot, too much of a nerd, too much of an awkward stupid boy to be with her. But she didn’t.

“That was a good day,” he admitted.

“We had a bunch of good days,” she agreed, still laughing at his face.

“Yeah,” Castiel sighed. “What do you think was the best?”

Meg took off his glasses and threw him an eloquent look.

“Fourth of July, 1999,” she said, without missing a beat.

Castiel didn’t have time to react, because he heard steps behind him, and turned around to find Dean on the doorway, rubbing his face and blinking at them sleepily.

“What are you two doing here?” he yawned.

“Uh… Meg couldn’t sleep,” Castiel answered, hastily.

Dean stared at the both of them, still not completely awake.

“See? I told you, you should have eaten something,” he said in the end. “Do you want me to make you a sandwich?”

“Now? It’s two and a half in the morning!”

“Dean is an expert at midnight snacks,” Castiel pointed out, while Dean nodded with a groggy yet proud smile in his face.

“Wow, okay,” Meg said. “Actually… well, if you don’t mind keeping me company, boys… that’d be great too.”

She looked down at her feet while she said it, and Castiel didn’t ever remember her looking so small (had she always been shorter than him? Had he grown past her height while they were apart?).

“You know, that’s… don’t even do that,” she added right away, with a grimace. “I shouldn’t be disturbing your sleep, I’m sorry…”

She tried to dash out of the studio, but Dean stopped her in the door.

“Hey, no, it’s okay,” he assured her. “We can keep you company. We’ll… play cards or a board game or something.”

“Like Dungeons and Dragons?” Meg asked.

Castiel chuckled against the back of his hand when Dean looked confused as hell.

“Uh… we don’t have enough people for that,” he said. “But I… think we have _Sorry!_ somewhere?”


	11. Hospitality

When Meg opened her eyes, she wasn’t exactly sure why she was lying on the floor, and why she was using someone’s arm as pillow, but she was so incredibly content that she couldn’t bring herself to care.

Then, slowly, the memories started coming back: Dean, in the kitchen, making a sandwich and insisting that she ate it because when had she eaten last? No wonder she felt like hell (it was worth nothing to him that Meg actually felt like shit because some jerk had utterly destroyed her apartment and all her personal belongings). Then Castiel had found their _Sorry!_ box and the three of them engaged in what must have been the most aggressive match ever.

“You live in a sorry universe, Dean Winchester,” Castiel had said, as he moved his pawn past both Dean _and_ Meg.

“Damn, I’ve forgotten you were this competitive,” Meg had commented.

“I hate you,” Dean had added, looking at the ceiling. “And I hate this stupid game.”

Their frustration was apparently amusing to Castiel, because he laughed at their faces for a long time. When he inevitably won and proposed a rematch, both Meg and Dean walked out on him and went to sit on the couch with a couple of beers.

“Should you be drinking that at this time?” Castiel had asked, a little worried.

“Shut up,” Dean had replied, pulling him down to the couch with them. “So, Meg, not counting the major douche, what was the weirdest date you had been on?”

Meg had to really think about it for a while.

“I dated a Rodeo Clown once.”

She wished she could have taken a picture of Castiel’s face, while Dean laughed his ass off and demanded details. She wasn’t sure exactly how long they talked on when they had decided that the carpet looked like the perfect place to close their eyes for a moment when sleep overcame them.

And now there they were. Slowly, trying to not wake them up, Meg rolled over. She was sleeping over Castiel’s right arm, who looked incredibly peaceful and content under the greyish morning light coming in through the window. Dean was snoring slightly, with his face buried in the left side of Castiel’s neck.

That was weird. Was it weird that they were all cuddle up together like that? When had that happened? Should she wake them up? Should she stand up and tiptoe out of there and avoid the awkward conversation this was going to bring out?

She chose the last option, of course. And she was going to do it… in five more minutes. Actually, that carpet _was_ incredibly comfy, or maybe she was exhausted, because she closed her eyes again and…

The doorbell rang, loud and invasive in such a peaceful moment. Meg rolled away from Castiel just in time to avoid being seen by Dean, who lifted his head and groaned loudly.

“Who the fuck…?” he mumbled, but the rest of his question was drown out by whoever was outside ringing the bell again, repeatedly, and knocking on the door like they had all the intention of kicking it down.

“Meg, you bitch!” said the person at the other side. “I know you’re there! What the fuck did tell the police about me?”

Meg recognized the voice immediately, and all the hairs in the back of her head stood up.

“Brady,” she muttered, shaken. What the hell was he doing there? How had he found her, how…?

Castiel, who was waking up at that point, put a consoling hand on her shoulder.

“I’m going to call Sheriff Mills,” he said, standing up to do exactly that.

“And I’m going to redecorate this douche’s face,” Dean said, cracking his knuckles.

“Dean, wait…” Meg sprung to her feet, but Dean was faster than her: he was already opening the door and really stretching the few inches he hovered on Brady.

“Yes?” he hissed.

“Look, man, this doesn’t involve you,” said Brady, obviously not too intimidated. “I just want to talk to that bitch of Meg. I know she’s in there, tell her to come and face me!” he added, raising his voice.

“Okay, first of all, if you’re going to stand in my door, you’re going to be fucking civil about it,” Dean said. “And has it occurred to you that maybe she doesn’t want to talk to you?”

Brady didn’t answer, apparently too astonished that Dean didn’t immediately give in to his demands.

“Are you serious?” he asked. “Is she really just going to hide behind a couple of fa…?”

“Hey, watch it,” Meg intervened, practically shoving Dean out of the way to stand in front of Brady. She knew she didn’t seem much of a menace, standing there in her pajamas pants and the oversize shirt the guys had lent her, but she was she was not willing to let anyone fight her battles for her. “These are my friends you’re talking about. What the fuck do you want, Brady?”

Brady stared at her, his face screwed up in anger.

“What do I want?” he asked. “I want you to stop telling lies to the cops, you hysterical bitch!”

“Last warning, dude,” Dean threatened him in a low tone.

“Well, if you didn’t want me to talk to the police, you shouldn’t have trashed my apartment,” Meg replied. “Honestly, I knew you were an asshole, but I didn’t think you were a psycho too.”

“What are you talking about?!” Brady shouted. “I didn’t even arrive in town until this morning, and the first thing they tell me is that the sheriff wants to talk to me! Whatever you told them about me, you’re lying, and we both know it! I didn’t lay a hand on you!”

“Well, that’s for sheriff Mills to determine,” Castiel said, standing right behind Meg. “And she’s coming right away, so I suggest you leave our property right this instant.”

Meg was certain Castiel’s murderous glare and Dean cracking his knuckles would be enough to scare away even the meanest of serial killers, and Brady certainly did seem taken aback. But she underestimated how bad his ego was bruised.

“Ah, come on! You’ve never had a girl accuse of something you didn’t do before?” he said, trying to appeal to Dean and Castiel’s male empathy. Clearly, it wasn’t working, because he added: “Or you’ve always been just a couple of sissies?”

“That’s it!” Dean growled.

But it wasn’t his fist that crashed against Brady’s nose, making him lose his balance and fall on his ass over the grass, waving his arms and shouting in frustration. Meg looked at him, and then looked at her knuckles like they had acted out of their own free will.

“Huh,” she commented, shaking her hand to ease the pain. “Didn’t think his skull would be that thick.”

Castiel and Dean couldn’t laugh as loud as they wanted, because Sheriff Mills parked right in front of their house at that moment. But she probably noticed Dean drowning his snickers in his hands, and the little smirk that appeared in Castiel’s lips.

 

* * *

 

Two hours after Sheriff Mills had dragged Brady out of the garden kicking and screaming and threatening charges against Meg for ruining his beautiful, beautiful face (Dean would be paraphrasing it like that when he told the story at the bar later), Meg received a call from her.

“Well, you were right, he is a mayor douche,” she agreed. “Sadly, that’s not punishable by law, just karma, as Donna would say.”

“What do you mean?”

“He has an alibi,” Sheriff Mills said. “A solid one, at that. He didn’t do that to your place. Also, I convinced him not to press charges for assault against you. You’re welcome.”

“Yeah, not my brightest moment,” Meg said. “But you should have heard the way he was talking about Cas and Dean.”

“Oh, I heard it,” Sheriff Mills growled. “He had it coming. But in any case, whoever destroyed your place is still out there. Keep an eye out, and if you remember someone who might have something against you, call me.”

“Thank you, sheriff.”

“Please, call me Jody,” she insisted. “Any friend of Cas and Dean is a friend of ours. We’ll find the asshole that did this.”

As little guarantee as that actually was, it made Meg feel a lot better. She’d never stayed in a place long enough to make friends with the sheriff. Hell, she’d never stayed in a place long enough to make friends with anybody. But in that town, everybody seemed opened and accepting to her just because she was friends with Cas and Dean. It was a strange feeling, and she wasn’t sure she didn’t like it.

“Damn,” Dean said when she went back to the breakfast table and informed them of their conversation. “He really got all my creepster radars vibrating.”

“You and me both,” Meg nodded. “But he’s apparently just a run-of-the-mill creep.”

“You’re not going to work today?” Castiel asked.

“I called in sick,” Meg shook her head. “I need a new wardrobe, and somewhere to stay….”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re staying here.”

They both spoke at the same time like it was a matter of fact.

“Uh, thanks,” Meg said, a little self-conscious all of the sudden. “I… I don’t want to overstay my welcome or…”

“There’s absolutely no way you’re ever overstaying,” Castiel declared. “As I’ve said, you’re welcomed here anytime and for as long as you need.”

He said like he was stating a fact known to everyone, in the same tone he would point out the grass was green or the sun rose every day. Meg turned to Dean, who was staring at Castiel with a frown of confusion.

“Yeah,” he said nonetheless. “What Cas said.”

“Okay,” Meg sighed. “Guys, your hospitality is invaluable to me. Really. But I don’t want to impose, and I don’t want you to feel uncomfortable with my presence here.”

“We would never…” Castiel started, but Meg raised a finger to shut him up.

“So I will stay,” she said. “But only until I find somewhere closer to the hospital that I can afford to live in or until my apartment is in conditions again.”

“Sounds reasonable to me,” Dean shrugged.

Castiel was obviously not as content as Dean with those conditions, but he nodded anyway.

 

* * *

 

One time, while she lived in New Mexico after dropping out, Meg had crashed on the couch of a couple of self-proclaimed neopagans whose tiny apartment reeked of weed and was overrun by huge spiders. That wasn’t the worst part, oh, no. The worst part was them.

She liked Portia and James a lot, individually. Portia was fierce and protective, and she taught Meg how to cook an actual meal for less than five dollars, which was a knowledge Meg would forever appreciate. She also liked James because he was smart and funny and always let her steal the crosswords section of his newspaper. If they had lived separated, Meg would have loved to live with either of them.

But together, oh, God. They were the definition of a toxic pair. They would fight over the weirdest thing, from who had let the hair clog the shower’s drain to whose turn it was to get the strange herbs they needed for their witchy rituals. And they weren’t lover’s quarrels either; they were full on, name calling, object throwing fights. Meg had more than once got caught in the crossfire, but they’d never apologized to her, like they hadn’t even noticed Meg had been there to witness all their nastiness.

But their honeymoon stage wasn’t quiet either: it was like they couldn’t really enjoy sex unless everyone in miles around knew that they were doing it. Meg was no prude, but she still had nightmares about the creaking of their bed and the things they shouted they wanted to do to each other.

She had stayed for six months because the place was close to the restaurant where she was working and because they didn’t ask her to pay any rent. Something about good karma and hoping that one day Meg would be able to return the favor. But the truth was she wanted to get the hell out of there by week two.

She was half-expecting it have the same thing happen to her with Dean and Castiel, but she discovered soon enough that they couldn’t be more different. Yes, she occasionally caught a glimpse of them sharing a kiss or holding hands over the table, but in general, they kept their private issues private.

And they only fought in front of her once, if that could even be called a fight.

“Cas, you forgot to put on the washing machine again,” Dean notified him.

Meg was sitting on the couch with a bowl of popcorn and watching Saturday Night Live, and Castiel was sitting by her side, with his moleskin notebook and a pen, apparently planning out his next book. He chewed his pen pensively, apparently not having heard what Dean was saying.

“Cas!”

“Oh, yeah, sorry,” Castiel said, shaking his head. “I’ll do it tomorrow.”

That answered didn’t seem to satisfy Dean, who crossed his arms over his chest and found a new thing to nag Castiel about.

“And how many times have I told you not to put your feet up on the coffee table?”

Meg swiftly put her feet down at the same time Castiel slowly turned to look at Dean.

“Sorry,” he repeated, but this time it sounded less sincere and more like _“Dean, can’t you see I’m busy? Go away.”_

Dean put his hands together over his mouth, like he was begging God to give him patience.

“I don’t understand how is that you can’t do these basic things,” he said. “I let you have that studio of yours as chaotic as you want for your creativity flow or whatever. All I ask is that you keep a little bit of order in the rest of the house.”

“I said I forgot,” Castiel groaned, clearly angry this time. “I’ll do it tomorrow. What is the big deal?”

“Oh, look at the time,” Meg said, standing up so fast her popcorn made a little jump on the bowl. “Didn’t realize it was this late. Good night, boys.”

Neither of them seemed to listen to her.

“I work two jobs, Castiel, and all I ask is to come home to fresh sheets…”

“Nobody asks you to work two jobs, Dean. You do that because you’re too stubborn to let me help you.”

“Well, maybe, but you’re too stubborn to take two minutes from your writing to put on the washing machine.”

“Are you saying my job is not hard?”

“It was ready before I left; all you had to do was press a button!”

Meg closed the door of her room muttering _“Yikes”_ to herself.

The next day, saying the atmosphere at breakfast was tense would have been like describing the Cold War as a minor diplomatic incident. Castiel was hiding behind the newspaper, not saying a single word, and Dean was cooking pancakes, making sure all the plates and the pans were particularly clattery that day. Meg sipped her coffee, eyeing them alternatively with caution.

Castiel had his hair in complete disarray and was still wearing the same clothes as the night before, making her suspect he might have slept on the couch. The dark circle under his eyes and the way he kept trying to suppress his yawns made her think maybe he hadn’t slept at all.

Dean looked a lot more rested, but he was definitely pouty as he settled the pancakes in the middle of the table.

“You want syrup?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t want you to overwork yourself,” Castiel replied, turning the page from the newspaper.

“I was asking Meg,” Dean clarified.

Castiel put the newspaper down and looked at Meg like he had completely forgotten she was there.

“Of course you were,” he said, pulling the newspaper up again.

“I’d love me some syrup,” Meg replied. “Thank you, Dean.”

“You’re welcome,” Dean said. “I’m glad someone appreciates everything I do around this place.”

Castiel put the newspaper down once more, throwing an icy glare in Dean’s direction. He opened his mouth to answer…

“Okay, you know what?” Meg interrupted him. “Could you wait until I’m not here to do that?”

The two of them seemed startled, like they hadn’t even realized what they were doing exactly.

“This is your drama, guys, and no offense, but the less I know about it, the better for me,” she continued. “So could you just wait until I left for work? And not involve me in it, please?”

“Oh,” Castiel blinked a couple of times. “Yes, of course.”

“Sorry,” Dean said, lowering his gaze like a child in daycare that had just been told off by his teacher.

Meg managed to finish her coffee in relative peace. But a couple of hours later, while she watched over the dayroom, she couldn’t help but to feel a little guilty about it. It was Dean and Castiel’s home, after all, and she was pretty certain she was abusing their good will by staying in there. Did she really have the right to tell them when or how to have their petty fights?

Probably not. Then again, it was awkward and unpleasant to be trapped into that kind of situation and she wanted nothing to do with them.

Castiel was locked up in his studio when she returned, and Dean had apparently not come back yet from the workshop. So Meg took up the time to take a nice, long shower and choose between her three wearable shirts, because she was still waiting for her next check so she could buy some clothes. It wasn’t the first time she had been down on her luck in that aspect: once, in Alabama, the guy she had been sleeping with stole her Beetle. Police managed to locate it, but the guy had disappeared with all of her possessions. She had been furious for a very long time, but the incident had taught her that things were just things, and she shouldn’t be too fond of them because they could be gone in the blink of an eye.

The situation was frustrating, yes, but at least she could say it was just the latest in the long list of unavoidable messes that her life was. She had made peace with the fact something would go wrong eventually long ago. Usually, however, her reaction was to run away and start anew someplace else until the next disaster hit. And there had been two disasters already: first Marin’s suicide and now the vandalizing of her apartment. And now she was in house with a couple dealing with what she assumed it would be an escalating conflict. As a rule, she would have quitted from the hospital before they had a chance to fire her and left so fast the only proof she was ever there would have the skid marks of her car on the road.

So why hadn’t she?

There was knock on the door. Meg threw one of the shirts over her head and went to open.

Dean and Castiel were both standing on the other side, awkwardly looking down at their feet. They both looked at her, and that’s when Meg became acutely aware that her hair was still wet dripping all over her shirt. Well, there was nothing she could do about it now.

“… yes?” Meg asked, confused when they didn’t speak.

“You tell her,” Dean said, crossing his arms over his chest.

“It was your idea,” Castiel groaned. “So you should do the honors.”

Dean glared at him, and Meg began wondering if they had come all the way there to bicker.

“Okay,” Dean cleared his throat. “So… we’re sorry for making you uncomfortable this morning.”

“We’re used to function like that,” Castiel added. “We always fight about these petty, unimportant things…”

“Laundry is actually kind of important.”

“… and we didn’t realize this dynamic of us might be uneasy for others,” Castiel continued, ignoring Dean’s jab. “So we would like to apologize for that.”

“Okay,” Meg said, blinking. She was not expecting an apology at all. “Uh… don’t sweat it, guys.”

“Yeah, the thing is, we want to make it up to you,” Dean continued. “We know there’s been a lot going on with you…”

“Stop,” Meg put an open hand up. “You’ve done more than enough taking me in.”

“I have to travel to Keystone this weekend to check some second-hand parts for sale for the workshop,” Dean continued like he hadn’t heard her at all. Meg was thinking that was an ability he must have picked up from Cas. “And I was thinking maybe you would like to come along. With me and Cas, I mean. It could be fun, just a quick road trip… we could stop by Mount Rushmore… it’s a stupid idea, forget about it.”

Dean was so flustered Meg got second-hand embarrassment just by looking at him, so she turned to Castiel to try and find out what he thought about that.

“Or we could both go and leave the house to you for the weekend,” Castiel suggested. “Your call.”

Meg didn’t even have to consider it. If the choice was between staying alone at the house with her own gloomy thoughts and enduring some third-wheeling on the open road, she would be the best goddamn third wheel the world had ever seen.

“Actually,” she smirked. “A road trip sounds great.”


	12. The Open Road

Dean was up before anybody on Saturday morning, but he already expected that. When he shook Castiel a little, he groaned and tried to put the pillow over his head.

“Come on, sleepyhead,” Dean laughed.

“No,” Castiel protested.

“You’re going to lose your shotgun privileges to Meg,” Dean threatened him.

Castiel didn’t seem awfully concerned about that, if the way he took over the sheets on Dean’s side and wrap himself in them was anything to go by. Okay, time to take drastic measures.

“Don’t you even want to take a quick shower with me?” he whispered in Castiel’s ear, in his roughest tone.

“You make a compelling argument, Dean Winchester,” Castiel replied, still not opening his eyes or moving. “But unless your dick is made of coffee, I have no interest in it right now.”

“Woah, you really know how to kill the romance,” Dean complained, but he was smiling when he left a kiss on Castiel’s shoulder. “Okay, I’ll give you half an hour and then you’re getting up no matter what, you hear me?”

Castiel turned his head and sank it on the pillow with another groan.

Dean hoped Meg was up so they could share a laugh at Castiel’s expense, but when he walked down the stairs, he noticed both the kitchen and the living room were completely empty. He plugged in the coffee maker and then went to knock on Meg’s door.

She opened up with messy hair, deep dark circles under her eyes opened him and the expression of a woman ready to kill a man.

“What?” she snapped at him, narrowing her. “It’s five thirty in the freaking morning.”

“Yes, I am aware of that,” Dean said, a little taken aback by the force of Meg’s fury and wondering if he should back away from where she could reach him. “Uh… we said we would wake at this hour so we could leave early and be at Keystone by noon.”

Meg rubbed her eyes, and the murderous expression disappeared from her face. Slowly.

“Right,” she remembered. “It’s Saturday.”

“Yeah…” Dean muttered. “You didn’t sleep well?”

“I’m fine,” Meg yawned, which totally contradicted what she was trying to convey. “Uh… give me five minutes, okay?”

Five minutes turned into twenty while Dean made a breakfast that would turn cold if those two didn’t wake up and drag their asses over the kitchen to eat it. Dean was wondering if he should knock again on Meg’s door when she walked out, her hair dripping wet over her shirt and her expression a little more awaken.

“Oh, coffee, thank God,” she sighed, in relief while she grabbed the mug and took it to her lips. It didn’t seem to matter at all to her that it was burning hot and had absolutely no cream or sugar in it. “Okay, I’m ready,” she determined when she had gulped down half of it. “Where’s Cas?”

“Good question,” Dean sighed, looking up. It was going to be complicated.

Waking Castiel up was like fighting against a particularly angry cat or a bratty child, temper tantrums and all. Dean understood that Castiel was a night-time person because that was when he “thrived” and when he had all of “the best ideas ever, Dean”, but still. It was really hard not to resent him and remind himself that he loved the sleepy bastard when he tried to throw pillows at him.

“Meg is already up!” Dean argued, feeling a little bit like a mother trying to convince his children to get off their asses and go to school. “Come on, Cas, you said you would!”

“I say a lot of things,” Castiel replied, trying to wrap himself in the blankets to avoid Dean pulling them away. “Just go without me.”

“Yeah, that ain’t happening,” Dean rolled his eyes. “Get up now or…”

“Or what?” Castiel groaned, defiantly.

Dean was trying to come up with a hard enough threat when he felt the scent of coffee floating inside the room.

“How is that going?” Meg asked, standing on the doorway with what apparently was her second cup of coffee.

“Not too great,” Dean replied, pinching the bridge of his nose.

But then a miracle happened: slowly, Castiel emerged from the nest of blankets he had wrapped himself in and looked over his shoulder.

“Why didn’t you say there was coffee?” he asked.

It took another half an hour and the promise of more coffee and some bacon, but finally, Castiel was showered, dressed and ready to go. He still looked like an extra in the first fifteen minutes of a zombie movie and moved like he was being pulled by strings, but at least he was moving.

“Oh, very well,” he muttered as Dean finished loading up the car. “I might as well keep sleeping during the journey…”

“What do you think you’re doing?” Dean asked when he thought Castiel stretching his hands towards the handle of the passenger door.

“I’m… getting inside the car?” Castiel asked, frowning.

“Yeah, I don’t think so,” Dean said, with a hand on his waist and the other pointing at the backseat. “I warned you were going to lose your privileges.

“What?” Castiel asked, looking horrified first at his boyfriend, and then at Meg. “You can’t be serious.”

“Sorry, Clarence,” Meg shrugged and basically pushed past him to open the door. “Finders’ keepers.”

Castiel still took time to stare at them in utter disbelief until Dean shouted at him.

“You coming or not, babe?”

He knew damn well the ‘babe’ wasn’t going to sooth it over, but it was fun to watch Castiel frowning and crossing his arms like the little dramatic shit he was on the rearview mirror.

“She only won because she was downstairs,” Castiel complained.

“I only won because I have the strength of will to fight the twin demons of laziness and procrastination,” Meg replied, sticking her chin up in the air, proudly.

“Right on,” Dean asked. “Why don’t you choose a cassette for us to listen to?”

“You never let me choose the music!” Castiel pointed out, his mouth opened in an offended gasp.

“And who the hell has cassettes anyway?” Meg asked, taking one out and looking at it like it was a magical artifact from another land. “You do realize it’s 2015, right?”

“Do you want to go into the backseat too?” Dean asked, crooking an eyebrow. “The backseat where losers sit?”

Castiel huffed and looked outside of the window just to show how offended he was. Meg shut up, picked a cassette at random and pushed into the radio.

“That’s better,” Dean sighed as Led Zeppelin filled up the car and the engine roared while they past by the end of the street. “We’re going to have so much fun.”

 

* * *

 

Well the first hour or so of the trip wasn’t exactly “fun”, because Castiel was still fuming and refusing to acknowledge their attempts at talking, and Dean was too busy schooling Meg on the rules about her car.

“Take your feet off the dash,” he groaned for the fourth or fifth time. “Seriously, were you raised by animals?”

“And were you raised by some sort of cultish family that ordered you to worship this car?” Meg asked, rolling her eyes.

In the backseat, Castiel let out a snickered that immediately and suspiciously became a fit of cough.

“No, but I was raised to respect people’s property,” Dean replied. “And you are completely and absolutely disrespecting my… what are you doing?”

“What does it look like I’m doing?” Meg replied, as she continued to roll down the window. “I’m hoping the wind will drown out all your moaning and whining.”

This time, Castiel laughed openly.

“Is he always so particular about the car?” Meg asked, looking over the seat.

“Try opening the visor,” Castiel advised her. “It will drive him insane.”

“Don’t!” Dean shouted, clearly frustrated. “Meg Masters, don’t you dare!”

Meg opened the visor, closed it again and opened it once more until Dean almost exploded.

“I thought you were on my side!” he exclaimed, betrayed.

“I’m not on anyone’s side, sweetie,” Meg replied, with a mischievous, twisted grin. “I am an entity of pure chaos.”

“Okay,” Dean groaned. “You’re sitting in the backseat on the way back.”

“Or maybe we should take turns,” Meg suggested. “Maybe you should go in the backseat while I drive…”

“No!” Dean shouted. Castiel completely cracked up.

But apparently their joint efforts to tease him woke them up enough they could be considered part of the living world again. Castiel took out his cellphone and started taking pictures of the things along the road he considered interesting, like a weirdly-shaped rock formations or the sign for a long abandoned tourist trap attraction.

“Slow down, will you?” he asked Dean when several of his pictures ended up as nothing but a moving blur.

“Nor can do, babe,” Dean replied, because he really needed to be at Keystone by noon.

Besides, it was the last week of summer, which meant the sunny day they were having would turn into an early, chilly night before months of fog, gloom and snow. But right now, he could see miles ahead underneath a sun that was just the right side of bright that he didn’t need any sunglasses; the blue sky in the horizon was a gift he never got around to really appreciate. So hell yeah he was going to take up this opportunity of a perfectly clear, dry road to get his Baby roaring.

And also, maybe, because he liked the way Meg stuck up her head out of the window, how she laughed as the wind blew through her long hair, forming a dark halo around her head every time they took a curve. Meg was laughing out loud and she seemed happy and relaxed in a way Dean had never seen her during her drunken appearances at his counter. And God knew she needed to laugh after everything that had happened.

“I don’t believe that is a safe behavior, Meg,” Castiel said, worried. “It could be dangerous…”

“Cas, just let her be,” Dean said, unable to hide his smile. The road was mostly empty, except for a Toyota Corolla that had been tailing them for a while.

“Her hair is not dry,” Castiel pointed out. “She could get sick…”

“Oh, my God, why are both acting like my mom today?” Meg asked, finally sitting back down on her seat, but she didn’t sound annoyed at all. Just amused. “And you do know the ‘ _you’ll catch a cold if you don’t dry your hair’_ thing is a myth, right?”

“Is it?” Castiel asked, opening his eyes wide like Meg had just revealed to him one of the deepest secrets of humanity.

“Yes,” Meg rolled her eyes. “You can take it from me. I’m a certified nurse.”

Castiel whipped out his Ipad. “What other things are myths?”

What followed was about an hour of Meg detailing a long list of common misconceptions that might or might not show up in one way or another in Castiel’s next book. Dean’s take away from it all was the confirmation that taking vitamin supplements was not actually a replacement for healthy meals.

“Told you!” he exclaimed, triumphant. “I swear, Cas, I’m going to spoon-feed you the next time you skip a meal because you were too busy writing.”

“Skipping meals is bad for your brain,” Meg added, nodding in complete seriousness. “It can give you headaches, make you less focus… the lack of energy might be why you find it so hard to get out of bed in the mornings. I don’t imagine writing is easy that way.”

Castiel apparently seemed annoyed at that lack of respect for his unhealthy life habits, because he countered:

“And what about you? Shouldn’t you measure your alcohol intake? I’m no certified nurse, but I’m certain you’re going to need a new liver a few years from now if you keep that up.”

“Save it, darling,” Meg said, still smiling but the corners of her mouth had got tense. “I’ve been needing a new liver for a few years now, and I don’t really plan to stop anytime soon just because you tell me to.”

Dean managed a chuckled before the other two turned his attention on them-

“What? I have very healthy habits!” he protested. “I eat well…”

“If by eating well you mean finishing up an entire half pie in one sitting,” Castiel pointed out.

“You work two jobs, which is already stressful enough, but then, you don’t seem to have any hobbies outside of them,” Meg added.

“You never go exercising, even though I constantly offer you to accompany me,” Castiel continued. “And you take extra shifts even though, and I can’t stress this enough, we don’t really need the extra money.”

“Well, maybe I like my jobs,” Dean replied gripping the wheel tighter. “Maybe I like having something to occupy my mind instead of sitting at home eating pie and thinking about all the crap I stow inside…!”

He shut up abruptly. He hadn’t meant to raise his voice. But he had got angry because every day he was trying the best he could and it was fine that Meg couldn’t see it because she only just met him, but the fact that Castiel would be so hard on him…

An awkward silence fell into the car when the cassette tape ended and nobody bothered to turn it around. Castiel looked down at his Ipad, typing now and then, but it was clear his heart wasn’t on it. Meg stared out of the window, with the joy that she had shown before completely gone. Dean shifted in his seat. Should he apologize? He felt like he should apologize, but then again, why should he? He was just telling the truth, why couldn’t they let him be?

“Holy shit,” Meg said, interrupting his thoughts. “How are we functional adults?”

Castiel let out a strangled noise that was so clearly a suppressed chuckled Dean couldn’t help but to feel the warm fuzzy feeling that invaded him whenever his boyfriend laughed. Within seconds, he was trying to suppress his urge to laugh too, but then Meg was snickering with a hand over lips and it was just a matter of them passing a trucker with a _“Jesus ain’t my co-pilot ‘cause he never learned to drive”_ sticker, and for some reason, they completely lost it. It was really hard to laugh as hard as Dean wanted when he was supposed to be focused on the road, so he just parked the car and hugged his ribs until they hurt.

“Oh, my God,” Meg said, wiping the tears from her eyes. “Oh, God, we’re such messes.”

“In general, yes,” Castiel said. “But I think it’s in times like these when it’s important to remember that adulthood isn’t a finish line one should aspire to reach, as nobody knows what parameters define it. And in any case, beautiful things can often emerge from chaos.”

Meg and Dean exchanged a look, obviously wondering if the other had understood whatever Castiel was trying to tell them.

“That’s… deep, Cas.”

“What did I tell you about his poetry being terrible?”

Castiel gasped, but it was clear by the way he started laughing again that there were no harmed feelings. After a few more minutes, Dean started the engine again. He was thinking if they were messes, at least they were together in it, but he didn’t say it out loud.

Instead, he started the car again. The open road waited.


	13. Penny For Your Thoughts

When they arrived at Keystone, they stopped at the first Biggerson’s they saw. Turned out that having only coffee for breakfast followed by a six-hour road trip wasn’t the best for the bladder or their appetite since, at Meg put it so graphically, “they could kill a horse with their bare hands and eat its intestines.”

“Alright, crazy kids,” Dean said after they found a table. “You stay here, color your tablecloths and behave while Daddy goes to finish his business.”

“Come back fast,” Meg said. “I was promised Mount Rushmore and I will not rest until I get it.”

“I think it will be rather hard for us to displace the entire mountain,” Castiel said, frowning. “But I guess we could try…”

Dean and Meg stared at him for a moment before they realized he was joking. Dean shook his head, kiss his boyfriend in the forehead and left. Meg ordered her food rather randomly, in Castiel’s opinion, before dashing towards the bathroom with her purse. Castiel stared at the back of her head for a moment before he took out his Ipad again and continued writing. He wasn’t even certain about what, but spending so much time staring at the back of Dean and Meg’s heads, listening to them laughing and sometimes singing along old rock music had inspired him. He didn’t think they even realized how similar they were, and also how different, but he could see it as clearly as the light of day.

Meg was independent to a fault, pretending she didn’t need anybody at all and refusing to take root anywhere. Dean had been like that for the better part of his life, after her mother had died and his father had bounced from job to job across the country with him and Sam on tow, but deep down he had always craved for a permanent home.

Dean loved his brother very much, while Meg didn’t seem to be in speaking terms with hers. Castiel imagined it had to do with the “shady business” she had alluded to, but he didn’t want to probe her in case she clammed up.

Dean felt he had somehow failed to live to his father’s expectations, even though John Winchester had been dead for many years now. In any case, Castiel knew first hand just how impossible to meet had those expectations been in the first place. They were the reason Dean had taken so long in getting over some deeply internalized and t hurtful ideas. Meg didn’t seem interested in following anyone’s expectations except her own. She was free-spirited and maybe a little more selfish than Dean.

They both used humor to mask when something bothered them. They both buried themselves in their jobs. They both pretended not to, but they cared deeply. They both gave themselves to whatever they had chosen to care about, no holding back and no reserve. That’s how they ended up hurt so often.

And they were both wonderful, in their own way.

“Penny for your thoughts?” Meg asked, returning to the table.

“I was just marveling at what different the results can be when two things are exposed to similar conditions,” Castiel said.

“Are you looking at pictures of your rocks?” Meg asked, laughing.

“Maybe,” Castiel said, slightly amused.

“Are they any interesting?” she asked. “Can I see them?”

“Oh… most of them are blurry… they’re not really that good…” Castiel stuttered, pathetically. The truth was he didn’t want Meg to know how many of the pictures he’d take were actually of Dean singing while he drove and of her laughing with her hair blowing in the wind.

Meg tilted her head with the same smirk he knew.

“You’re still a terrible liar.”

Castiel didn’t even attempt to argue with that.

Meg didn’t talk much during the next half hour, too busy sinking her teeth in a sandwich and downing her beer, even though Castiel pointed out that was exactly what he’d meant when he’d said she needed to measure her intake.

“It’s fine,” she said, with a laugh. “It’s not like Dean’s letting me drive his car anyway.”

“That is true,” Castiel admitted. “If he, for any reason, ever lets you drive it, you can rest assure it’s because he has come to trust you completely.”

“Duly noted.”

Castiel watched her eat for a moment, completely enthralled by how happy she seemed to be with her sandwich.

“And you still stare,” Meg added. Castiel looked away immediately, feeling his cheeks burning up, but Meg didn’t seem at all annoyed by it. “It’s good to know some things haven’t changed.”

“Oh?” Castiel asked. “What things _have_ changed, pray tell?”

“Well, you seem more open, for instance,” Meg said. “You used to be super shy and stiff. I mean, you were a cocky, dramatic little shit back then too, but I didn’t know that until I got to meet you. Now you just seem to… let your cockiness out more easily.”

“That’s probably not the best choice of word,” Castiel pointed out.

Meg swallowed her sandwich with a pensive expression, and when she got the joke, she laughed out loud, not caring if anybody saw her.

“See? That’s what I mean,” she commented. “Sixteen-year-old you would have blushed and stuttered all over that joke.”

“Sixteen-year-old me had no idea about the mysteries of sex,” Castiel replied. “I have since learned that it can be a wonderful business, but also awkward and hilarious when done in the correct company.”

“You still talk like you’re a walking dictionary,” Meg snickered, but it was clear there was something else in her mind. After a few more sips, she finally make the question: “Where there others? Between me and Dean, I mean.”

Castiel’s first instinct was to react the exact same way he had when Dean had asked him why he wanted to talk to Meg again. Why did she care? What kind of answer was she fishing for there?

But then he realized they were just making friendly conversation. She had told them the story about the rodeo clown, after all. Nothing he’d ever done had ever been as embarrassing as that.

“During my sophomore year in college, I met Daphne,” he confessed. “She was a very sweet, very religious girl. The kind my mother would approve of. But she was convinced that people should wait until marriage to have sexual intercourse. So, she was deeply disappointed when she found out I had been with someone before meeting her.”

“Sorry,” Meg chuckled.

“Don’t be. I clearly didn’t share those views,” Castiel pointed, with a smile. “Also, I could have told her I was a virgin, but a lie about something that was so important for her wouldn’t have been a good basis for a relationship. Afterwards, there were others, but nothing serious since…”

“Since you were already falling for Dean,” Meg said, crooking en eyebrow.

Castiel nodded. “After he dropped out and we practically lost all contact, I told myself there was no use in waiting for him,” he said. “So I dated a girl named April for a while. She was… something.”

“That’s code for she was terrible, isn’t it?” Meg guessed.

Castiel wouldn’t have put it so bluntly, but she wasn’t entirely wrong.

“Our break-up was… a very slow process that took years,” he grimaced. “But in the end, she finally walked out, and… Dean walked into my life again.”

Meg nodded. It was like she had been trying to understand some sort of problem, but she finally got the answer.

“What about you?” Castiel asked. “Anyone… serious?”

“Well, I could tell you,” Meg said. “But then we’d be here all afternoon.”

It was Castiel’s turned to laugh, but despite his eloquent silence, Meg didn’t offer any more details.

“Mostly jerks not even worth mentioning,” she said, with a dismissive hand gesture. “I just keep attracting the wrong kind of guy, apparently.”

“I’m sure you will find someone who doesn’t fit that description, eventually,” he said.

“Eventually,” Meg repeated, rolling her eyes. “Woah, that really gives me hope.”

She laughed, but Castiel had the impression there was a hidden sadness in her eyes. That hadn’t changed either. When they were younger, she would make sarcastic comments about everything, make jokes all the time and laugh at the most inappropriate things. But he would always notice vulnerability behind her eyes, something deep and hidden she wouldn’t let anyone see.

Well, he thought he had seen it, once or twice, but he couldn’t really be sure. And now those depths had become even harsher.

Also, she was absolutely right about his poetry being terrible. He really should stick to murdered people.

He caught the Impala out of the corner of his eye parking outside the Biggerson’s, and half a minute later, Dean sauntered in with a smile from face to face.

“Well, that was easy,” he commented, happily as he plopped down in the chair between the two. “And now it’s over, we can all head for Mount Rushmore.”

“Shouldn’t you eat first?” Meg suggested. “Like, this is exactly what we were talking about. If you’re not going to let us touch your car, at least make sure you won’t pass out from starvation.”

“Ugh, fine,” Dean groaned. “I’ll order something to go.”

“Way ahead of you,” Castiel said, and made the waitress a gesture. She approached the table with a brown package right away.

“One double cheeseburger to go,” she said. “Thank you for your visit.”

Dean looked at Castiel with touched expression in his eyes.

“You know me so well!”

 

* * *

 

There was some traffic on the way to the National Memorial because apparently Saturday afternoon was exactly the day every single tourist, school group and old lady with small dogs decided to visit the damned thing. In any other occasion, Dean would have been annoyed by it all, but he had finished his business faster than he had imagined, he’d had the best cheeseburger ever, and it was always nice to see Castiel’s eyes lit up when he found something that caught his attention.

“It’s called the _Storm Mountain Road_ , Dean,” he said, like Dean had absolutely not seen all the signs that indicated exactly that. “How come I didn’t know that?”

“You can’t know every weird name of every single road in the country, Cas,” Dean replied, but he was happy to see him excited like a little child about it.

Castiel was clearly decided to know them, and he had obviously been struck by inspiration, because a second later he was writing furiously.

“It’s actually a cool name,” Meg intervened from the backseat. She had basically snatched Dean’s soda and was currently drinking it and making smartass comments about the people they saw outside of the window. “Like one of the places where your Dragons and Dungeons characters would end up in.”

“It’s Dungeons and Dragons,” Castiel said, narrowing his eyes at her.

But Dean laughed again.

“Dungeons and Dragons!” he repeated, delighted. “How long has it been since we played that? Man, we gotta convince Sam and Jess to join us for at least one game when they come over for Thanksgiving.”

The car went silent all of the sudden, and it took Dean a minute to check up the rearview mirror to realize Meg was staring at him with a head tilt that looked a lot like Castiel’s.

“What?”

“Nothing,” she replied. “I just didn’t peg you for a Dungeons and Dragons player, exactly.”

“Well, there’s a lot of things you don’t know about me,” Dean replied, sticking up his chin proudly.

“Dean is what we denominate a closeted geek,” Castiel clarified. “It’s one of the few things he is still closeted about.”

“You’re not funny,” Dean rolled his eyes, but Meg completely contradicting him by hiding her mouth in the inside of her elbow to drown out some giggles.

“Oh, my God!” she said, pointing the straw from her drink towards the left window. “Check out that ugly dog!”

A car in the lane right behind them was basically stopped thanks to the jam, and one of those furless dogs was sticking his head out of the window. Dean was about to jokingly ask if they were sure that thing was a dog at all when it started barking and growling at them. He jumped in his seat, not because the animal _scared him_ , but because it _startled him_. There was a difference. Meg and Castiel still found it hilarious.

“You are not my friend!” Dean told Meg, who was chortling with her hands around her ribs. “And you’re supposed to love me, dammit!”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Castiel panted. “I do love you. I love you so much I will make sure the ugly dog never eats you.”

Dean pretended to be annoyed by their teasing for five more minutes before he started laughing as well. They moved away from the ugly dog, and finally, they reached the entry to the park.

“I thought we were going to the Mount,” Meg protested when Dean took a curve away from the gates of the park.

“I thought you wanted to see the damned thing,” Dean replied. “You’re not going to do that if you have to make way through a swarm of tourist and school gremlins. Well, you probably could, but you’re not going to enjoy it.”

Meg threw an interrogative look at Castiel, who was just as confused as her, but he shrugged. After all those years, he knew better than to try to question Dean’s idea of a surprise.

Once they entered a dirt road, there was definitely a lot of less traffic. Dean thought he saw a Corolla right behind them while they took the turn, one like the one they had seen that morning on the highway. Was it red like this one or blue? He couldn’t remember. Well, it didn’t matter. Everyone and their mothers had Corollas and after a few minutes, the car turned around and returned where it came from.

So now they were practically alone in a camping in the Black Hills, and Dean was decided to make the most of it.

“There we go,” Dean smiled when they reached the spot he had been looking for. “Best view in the house.”

“Oh, my God!”

The faces of all the presidents plastered all over the horizon, underneath the burning sun were something to behold. Not because they were a bunch of famous dead dudes, but because from that distance they could appreciate the details even better than if they had been up close. Meg pulled her sunglasses over her eyes, with a face-splitting grin, while Castiel looked at Dean mildly impressed.

“How did you know about this place?” he asked.

“I read,” Dean replied, walking around the car to open the trunk. “Internet reviews and tourists’ guides. Useful stuff.”

Well, he wasn’t entirely sure they were permitted to park there, since technically it was Black Hills territory, but the ticket would be worth it just to sit right between Meg and Castiel on a blanket on the floor for a while. He opened the ice cooler and passed Castiel a soda, but Meg turned it down.

“Please, I don’t think my bladder can take it.”

“Well, the creek it’s just over there. If you want us to give you some privacy…”

Meg pulled out some grass blades from the floor and threw it at them. Castiel held his Ipad at arm’s length, trying to get a picture of the three with the Mount in the horizon. It took several attempts because Meg and Dean kept messing the shot by making the goofiest faces they could think of.

“Preschoolers,” Castiel complained after the ninth or tenth attempt. “You’re worse than preschoolers.”

“And you’re worse than a teenage girl obsessed with selfies,” Dean accused him. “Sit back down and enjoy the moment.”

“But I want a picture…”

Meg grabbed him by the wrist and pulled until Castiel fell on his ass on the blanket again. After he was done protesting and complaining, he went quiet, and for a moment, neither of them said a word. Dean closed his eyes, enjoying the breeze running through his hair. Castiel leaned on his left shoulder, while Meg pressed her back against the right one, because apparently he had become some sort of furniture for the two. But he didn’t push them away.

“Best day ever,” Meg sighed after a while.

And it was a relief to hear her say that.

 

* * *

 

Cas and Meg were fast asleep on the way back when Dean saw the Corolla tailing them again. This time he was sure it was the same one, the same cherry red of the one in the Black Hills. And if someone had asked him, he would sincerely said he couldn’t explain it, but suddenly there was a strange feeling in his gut, like someone was pulling from them to get his attention.

He tried slowing down to get the car to surpass them, but it stayed right where it was behind them, at enough distance that Dean couldn’t make out who was driving it. Finally, now completely convinced there was something fishy about it, Dean decided to stop at the first Gas Station he saw. If the car stopped with them, well… perhaps he should have a word with the driver about not suspiciously following people when one of them had had their apartment destroyed just a few weeks prior.

“What is it?” Castiel jolted awake when he felt the car stopping. He looked around groggily before he realized where they were. “Didn’t we fill the tank before we left Keystone?”

“Uh, yeah…” Dean answered distractedly, his eyes fixed on the road.

“Is there a problem?” Meg asked as well.

Dean breathed deeply, and for a second, he considered telling them about what he’d seen. But the more that conversation sounded in his head, the more he realized how paranoid and improbable it was.

“No,” he said instead. “Just a noise in the engine. It’s probably nothing, but it’s best to check and make sure. Safety first and all.”

Meg and Castiel both stared at him, but they didn’t question his story.

“Your boyfriend is weird,” was all that Meg commented out loud as they left the car to buy some more provisions.

“I know,” Castiel replied, loud enough for Dean to hear it: “I like him that way.”

Dean lifted the hood of the Impala, and pretended to look at the engine while keeping an eye fixed on the road. A few moments later, he saw the red Corolla passing by, and he made sure to follow it with his gaze until it disappeared in the horizon. Only then he allowed himself to breathe in relief.

“Come on, it’s perfect for you!” Meg’s voice came behind him.

“It’s really a waste of your money,” Castiel was protesting. “I’m not going to wear it.”

Dean looked up to see what they were arguing about. Meg was holding a grey shirt that read: “I’m sorry about what I say when you tried to wake me up” and Castiel looked incredibly annoyed that she even dared suggest he wore it.

“What do you think?” she asked Dean.

“Buy it,” he said. “I’m gonna make him wear it every day.”

Castiel was mortified, but he looked cute that way.


	14. The Elephant In The Room

Once the sheriffs determined there was no more valuable evidence they could get there, Meg started cleaning up her apartment of all the trash her belongings had been turned into. For reasons that had a little to do with pride and a little to do with not wanting to owe them more favors than she already did, she rejected Dean and Castiel’s offering of help. That ended up making the process a lot slower, as she hadn’t realized how many things she had managed to collect in the short time she lived there. Or maybe they weren’t that many, but they looked that way because they had to be taken out in pieces.

The result was that by the time October rolled around, the place wasn’t livable yet: the ugly words in the walls had to be painted, she’d had to buy new furniture (or second hand furniture), new electronics, new curtains… And just as she had suspected, the insurance refused to give her a dime since nothing had been stolen. She would need to invest a large chunk of her own paychecks for her home to even start resembling what it once had been.

Also, it would help if she could stay there again without feeling like someone was breathing down her neck.

She had tried it, nobody could say she hadn’t. She had found a mattress she could use as a bed and a night-lamp to keep by her side. Despite Castiel’s insistence that it really was no trouble for them to keep harboring her in their home, she was decided to reclaim her own home. Besides, the more she lived there, the more she would find out what things she needed to replace and which ones she could live without, right?

So she spent Halloween afternoon listening to Dean and Castiel arguing over candy corn until she calls them both ridiculous idiots, and then she had left for her place.

She was ashamed to admit she hadn’t made it through the night. Ignoring the big “SLUT” sign over her head was the easy part. Setting down to sleep on her mattress with her still meager new clothes and belongings, well, that wasn’t so easy. First, because she didn’t even know where to begin putting them. And second, because the more time she spent there, in the absolute silence, the more aware she was of the crackles of the apartment as it settled, of the tree’s branches scratching the window’s glass. She closed her eyes, but in her half-asleep mind, the sounds became amplified by a thousand and in two seconds flat, she jumped from the mattress, convinced she had heard footsteps coming towards her door.

Of course, by the time she realized it was her mind playing tricks on her, she was already standing in the middle of the living room with her heart practically pounding out of her chest and wielding her lamp against an invisible enemy. She put it down, breathed in deeply a couple of times, and decided there was no way she was going to get a full night of sleep in there. It was absolutely ridiculous, because she hadn’t even been there when the attack had happened, so she really had no reason to be so paranoid and nervous despite the fact she was basically alone in the building because Suzie had left to visit her nephews for Thanksgiving and she really didn’t know any of her other neighbors and Sheriff Mills would take a while to get there if she called her and…

Luckily for her, Castiel was still awake writing when she rang the bell.

“The mattress was too uncomfortable,” Meg said, walking in before he could ask a single question.

The following morning, Dean crooked an eyebrow when he saw her sitting in the table having breakfast the following morning, but all he did was ask if Meg was going to be there for Thanksgiving.

“Do I even have to say how I don’t want to impose just for you guys to assure me I’m not?”

“I think we are way past that point,” Castiel replied. “We usually don’t have a big reunion like on the Fourth of July, but Dean’s brother and his girlfriend do come over for the weekend. It’s usually very fun.”

“Yeah,” Dean added from the kitchen. “And maybe this year Jess won’t complain she’s the only girl in the house with three big, sweaty men for four days straight.”

“Honestly, I don’t see why she would complain about that,” Meg joked. “Sounds like an average Saturday night party to me.”

There was a clatter from the pans Dean had dropped while he tried to suffocate a chuckle.

“The point being, you’re more than welcome to join us,” Castiel said. “And I repeat you can stay for as long as you need to.”

“Well, you’re gonna have to be really patient with me,” Meg sighed. “Because if I keep going like this, it’s going to take a while. I’m thinking I might have to start paying you rent.”

“Hey, no complaining here,” Dean said, as he put a plate full of smoking pancakes in the middle of the table. “Unlike my other roommate, you understand the basic function of coasters.”

“So I have been downgraded to _‘roommate’_ again?” Castiel asked, throwing the coldest glare he could muster at his boyfriend. “How very three years ago. I’m having flashbacks of the inside of the closet you tried keeping us in.”

Dean started apologizing profusely while Castiel pretended to be mad at him by hiding his smirk behind his newspaper and Meg giggled over her cup of coffee. Yes, this was definitely better than sleeping on a mattress on the floor of a place full of invisible threats.

 

* * *

 

The thing about peaceful nights, Meg was discovering, was that they became rarer and rarer the older you grew. On Thanksgiving week the hospital’s personal was wearing thin due to so many people taking whatever days off they could to get out of town early, and therefore, people who lived there or had no families to go to – people like her – were left covering for them.

“So now I have to cover for Ava if I want the day off tomorrow and I’m going to be… back late,” she told Dean on the phone. She had to stop short from saying she was going to be _home_ late. Because their house wasn’t her home, so she really had no business calling it that. “Don’t wait up for me.”

“You sure you don’t want me to pick you up?” he asked. “I’ve heard there’s a snow storm heading this way.”

“That’s really sweet, but no,” Meg replied. “Somebody has to drive my car back.”

“Okay, I’ll tell Cas to leave you some dinner in the oven. Take care.”

After they hung up, she stared at her phone for a couple of seconds. She had no idea when she had grown so used to Dean and Castiel waiting for her, eating with her and just generally… living all together.

She felt guilty, but her reasons for it had changed. At first it had been because she thought she was intruding in their lives, but after so many weeks, she had reached the conclusion they actually liked having her around as much as she liked being around them. Now she felt guilty because she kept acting like she was just a guest, like she was going to move out back to her apartment any day, but she kept postponing it, because the truth was… she really didn’t want to. But that in-between position was unfair for everybody. So she either started paying rent for the room she was using or she got over herself and went back to her apartment. She would have to talk about it with the guys and choose eventually.

But not that night. That night, she had to focus on cleaning a lot of messes, tending to a lot of visiting relatives and helping a lot of elderly patients get to their beds. By the time her shift ended, it was three in the morning and the only thing she could feel at all was exhaustion. She had no idea how she was supposed to be up the following day to receive Dean’s brother and his girlfriend, but she hoped they didn’t mind a half-assed smile and yawns in their faces.

The house was silent and dark when she arrived. She kicked off her shoes and threw her jacket over the couch (Dean would nag the following day, but she was too tired to care) and burst into her room. She did think that the covers looked extra bulgy that night, but she didn’t make much of it as she jumped onto them…

… and promptly fell to the floor, because she had just crashed against the very firm, very warm back of someone sleeping in her bed.

 

* * *

 

An ear-splitting scream woke Dean up right away. It took a few more seconds to Castiel, and by then, Dean had already untangled himself from his cuddle and found his boxers on the floor.

“What?” Castiel asked, groggily, but Dean was already bolting downstairs.

Dammit, dammit, he knew he shouldn’t have left Castiel convinced him to keep his gun in the safe. Now he was charging blindly downstairs and he didn’t know if Meg was hurt or if there was someone there or…

Well, she seemed to be handling it pretty well on her own. She had grabbed an umbrella from the stand by the door, and she was currently wielding it like it was a sword, keeping a safe distance from the guy standing in the middle of the living room with his hands up like he thought Meg was going to stab him.

“Who the fuck are you?!” Meg demanded to know.

“I could ask you the same!” the guy replied. “Put that thing down!”

“Don’t come any closer! I’m calling the police, I swear!”

“I have a right to be here, okay? This is my brother’s house!”

And suddenly Dean was glad Castiel had forced him to keep his gun in the safe.

“Sammy?” he called out as he hit the lights.

Sam turned around (still holding his hands in the air) and it was pretty obvious why Meg would think he was some sort of six feet tall bum that had found his way inside the house. He was wearing what seemed to be clothes he had been sleeping in for a couple of days, his long hair was unwashed and messy, and there was what had to be three day stubble covering his cheeks and his chin.

The back of Dean’s mind immediately set off all the alarms, because if Sam was there a day before they were expecting him, looking like that and with no Jess in sight, then something was seriously wrong. But he knew Sam wouldn’t want to up and talk about it right away, and much less with a death-by-umbrella threat staring right at him, so first Dean had to defuse the situation.

“Hey!” he said, with what he hoped looked like a happy smile and not a ‘ _I’m forcing it so you don’t realize how worried I am about you right now’_ smile. “You got here early!”

He wrapped his arms around Sam and pulled him close, and his preoccupation went through the roof when Sam hugged him back without making any comments about what a sap Dean was or how gross it was to hug him in his underwear or calling him “mom” while rolling his eyes at him.

“Meg, this is my little brother Sam,” Dean introduced him.

“I’m sorry, _little_?” Meg repeated, still holding the umbrella up like she was ready to bash someone’s head with it.

“And this is Cas’ friend, Meg,” Dean introduced her, flat out ignoring her perplexity. “There was a problem with her apartment so she’s staying with us. Put that down, Meg.”

Meg hesitated for a second, but she finally obeyed.

“Hi,” Sam said, with an awkward smile. “I’m sorry I freaked you out.”

“Yeah,” Meg said, still clearly agitated from the entire business. “Sorry I… yeah, sorry about all this,” she said, as she returned the umbrella to the stand.

Castiel appeared at the top of the stairs, rubbing his eyes and wrapped up in Dean’s blue robe. He blinked at them a couple of times, like he was giving his brain time to process what he was seeing.

“Oh, hi, Sam,” he greeted him in the end. “Would you like a cup of tea?”

 

* * *

 

The following morning was cold and grey, with angry heavy clouds hanging over their heads. Dean doubted the storm would hit the town until the next day at least, but he still got up early (well, earlier than everyone else in the house) and grabbed a sack of salt from the basement. He let it fall on Sam’s sleeping head, just to watch him jump up the couch like a completely disoriented, overgrown puppy.

“Come on,” he said, when Sam finally realized what was going on. “You’re helping me out.”

Sam glared at him but put on his boots without protest.

It was a slow morning outside and the street looked almost empty, but Dean preferred it that way. It made it look like he and Sam were the only ones in the world, so it was perfect for them having a chat.

“So last night was funny, huh?”

“I guess,” Sam sighed while he sank his hand in the sack and started spreading the salt without any enthusiasm.

“It was hilarious,” Dean insisted. “I swear Meg was ready to fight you. And I just can’t picture it because she’s so _tiny_ …”

“She’s average.”

“Don’t let her hear you saying that,” Dean warned him. “You might wound her ego.”

Sam offered a half-hearted chuckle as his joke, and continued working in silence for a few minutes.

“So what’s the deal with her?” he asked, in the end. “Why is she staying in my room?”

“First of all, it’s the guest’s room,” Dean corrected him. “We can have guests that aren’t you, you know?”

Sam rolled his eyes, in typical Sam Winchester fashion, and that was a little more sincere. So Dean explained to him why Meg was staying there and who she was.

“So she’s Cas’ high school sweetheart who is basically living with you two?” Sam asked, frowning. “And that doesn’t bother you? At all?”

“I’m very secure in my relationship,” Dean shrugged. Sam kept staring at him until Dean couldn’t ignore him anymore. He huffed as he threw the rest of the salt on the sidewalk. “Okay, fine, it bothered me. A little bit. But like I said, I trust Cas, and besides, I got to know Meg, and she’s… well, she’s… she’s something.”

“That’s code for you actually like her,” Sam laughed.

“Guess I do, yeah,” Dean shrugged. “She’s a bit like us. She’s been through some shit.”

He didn’t add anything else. He wasn’t like Castiel, he didn’t have a way with words to describe what he liked or didn’t like about people. He just knew that he had been a little reluctant when Meg had first started sleeping in that room, but he had grown used to her sense of humor, to her independence, to the way she looked so sad and tired when she thought no one was looking. She clearly wasn’t as okay as she pretended to be (her freak out the night before clearly meant the asshole who had trashed her place was still in the back of her mind, at the very least), and just beneath that crust of flirting and constant joking there was someone who he had come to understand. Just because she was so much like him in certain aspects…

Oh, God, Cas had a type.

“What’s so funny?” Sam asked when Dean snickered at the thought.

“Nothing,” he replied. He really couldn’t explain it without dragging Sam through his twisted thoughts. “Never mind. Let’s go inside and get some breakfast.”

He waited until Sam was halfway through his mug of coffee before bringing up the elephant in the room:

“So did Jess have some sort of family emergency or something?”

“Or something,” Sam sighed. Dean waited patiently while his little brother ran his fingers through the edge of the cup, pensively. “I proposed.”

“… oh,” Dean said, because that was the smartest thing that came to his mind in that moment. “And what she said?”

“Why, Dean, she was exulting,” Sam answered, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “That’s exactly why she’s here right now, telling you all about what she wants to do for our wedding.”

“Got you,” Dean said, with a cringe. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“Not really, no.”

“Okay, well, we’re not even mentioning it, then,” Dean promised. “We’re just going to have ourselves a great Thanksgiving and not even think about anything that might bother you.”

“Thank you,” Sam sighed.

“I’m going to wake Meg and Cas now so we can go shopping,” Dean announced after he finished his coffee. “Gotta get there early if we want to get a good turkey.”

He thought he saw a grimace in his brother expression, but he figured he must have been imagining it.

 

* * *

 

“I really hope you know I hate you.”

“You don’t really mean that.”

“Oh, but I do,” Meg promised him, glaring at the back of Dean’s head like she could absolutely make him feel it that way. “I hate you with a burning passion, and I hope your turkey tastes horrible just so I can make fun of you for it.”

Sam snickered and looked outside of the window while Dean complained about how unnecessarily mean Meg was being. She didn’t care. It was her first free day in weeks, and she had started it by being dragged out of bed kicking and screaming to buy groceries of all things. She had already warned Dean that was no way to persuade her to make pie for dessert.

Castiel, on his part, didn’t seem particularly affected by it all. He was happily sleeping in the passenger seat, almost as if Dean had lifted him out of bed and carried him there with all the delicacy of the world. So Meg couldn’t even count on him to complain or to tease Dean with her. It was torturous, especially because it was so obvious Dean was doing everything in his power to remain optimistic and cheerful, to the point it was painfully obvious he was faking it for… someone’s sake. Meg suspected Sam.

Since his sudden arrival at the house, it had been obvious that he was going to some sort of crisis. Meg mean to ask what had happened to the Jess person he was supposed to have brought along with him, but one glance at him and she decided it was really none of her damn business after all. Sam looked like a kicked puppy two seconds away from starting howling uncontrollably, and Meg was not willing to open that can of worms.

So instead she kept egging Dean on to turn around and leave her she could go back home and resume her sleeping. He wasn’t falling for it.

“Come on, this is the fun part,” Dean insisted. “Didn’t you ever go shopping for food with your family growing up?”

“Not really,” Meg confessed. “I mean, I couldn’t have, with my dad generally not being around and my brother high as a kite on God only knew what.”

“Wow, Meg, go ahead and ruin this holiday with your bleakness, why don’t you?” Dean groaned, but Sam was quietly chuckling in the backseat.

“Our dad wasn’t around a lot either,” he commented.

“He was working!” Dean argued with the tired tone of someone who’d had that conversation or some variation of it a thousand times before.

“One year, our Thanksgiving dinner consisted on fried chicken wings and frozen vegetables,” Sam continued, completely ignoring his brother’s attempt at defending their father.

“I’ll do you one better,” Meg laughed. “One year for Christmas, my brother cooked pot brownies for dessert.”

Sam laughed out loud, and what followed was twenty fun-filled minutes of he and Meg trying to determine who’d had the worst childhood holidays. Meg brought up the time her Uncle Alistair got drunk on Thanksgiving and ran over her kitten while trying to drive away, and Sam reminded Dean of that Christmas Eve when their father failed to show up with presents, so Dean broke into their neighbor’s home and stole their presents.

“That’s actually kind of nice,” Meg said. Well, nice within the depressing context of the story, of course. “Wish my brother had done something like that for me growing up.”

“Yeah, except because the presents turned out to be for our neighbors’ _nieces_ ,” Sam told her. “So that was the year I received a Barbie doll and a make-up set. What every ten year old girl’s heart desired.”

“I told you, I didn’t know they were chicks’ presents,” Dean protested while Meg giggled at him. “You’re being an ass on purpose!” he accused Sam as Meg laughed even harder. “There were good things too!”

“Oh, yeah?” Sam said, skeptical. “Name one.”

While Dean struggled to, they finally reached the grocery store.

“This conversation isn’t over,” he threatened, which only served for Sam to start laughing along with Meg so loud they woke up Castiel.

“What? Oh we are here?” he asked groggily. He stretched like a cat and smiled. “I wonder if we can get some of those mini-pies that we got last year… they’re actually tasty; I don’t understand why you’re laughing.”

Neither Meg nor Sam could calm down enough to explain it to him, and Dean was far too frustrated to offer one.


	15. Sibling Rivalry

The grocery store wasn’t as full as Dean had feared, but he still decided to enforce his plan.

“Here’s half the list of the things we need,” he said, ripping the paper in two and forcing it in Sam’s hand. “Get exactly what it says there, okay? No replacements, no low fat shit either. Just plain what it says there and nothing else, am I making myself clear?”

“Sir, yes, sir,” Sam said, imitating a military salute that immediately sent Meg into another giggling fit. Dean squinted at his brother, but continued:

“You find it, and you meet us at the register. No distractions, no playing. We need to be out of here before the grannies armies get here.”

“Uh, I’ve got an idea,” Meg exclaimed, her eyes suddenly getting a manic glimmer in them. “How about we make it a competition? First team to make it to the register wins.”

“This is serious business, Meg…”

“And what would the prize be?” Castiel asked, tilting his head in interest.

Dean grabbed him by the arm and dragged him away while muttering: “Don’t encourage her.” It didn’t help at all that Meg and Sam burst into laughter at their backs.

“They seem to be getting along nicely,” Castiel commented.

“Yeah, _too_ nicely if you ask me,” Dean complained. “They’ve been trying to one up each other all morning on who had the shittiest childhood.”

“Well, I didn’t really believe Meg had a fighting chance on that topic,” Castiel said. “But the story of the run-over kitten was rather heartbreaking.”

“You were listening!” Dean accused him.

Castiel just passed him and started selecting vegetables with a self-conceited smirk in his face. Dean wanted to kill him a little bit, but he was content with playfully pinching his boyfriend’s ass to make him almost drop the tomatoes he was holding. A lady with an ugly green cardigan shot them a look of disapproval, but they were too busy smiling at each other to care.

“So have you interrogated Sam about Jess’ absence?”

“I didn’t interrogate him,” Dean said. “I gently probed him for a bit of information.”

“Of course you did,” Castiel rolled his eyes. “What did he say?”

With a sigh, Dean related to him what little he had found out about the issue.

“That is unfortunate,” Castiel said after a few seconds of silent reflexing.

“Yeah, that’s one way to put it,” Dean huffed. “And he’s there pretending everything is alright, but he must be devastated.”

“Probably, but…”

“I mean, what the hell do you think happened?” Den continued, as he randomly starting picking vegetables and throwing them in the cart. “I thought he and Jess were a closed deal, meant to be and all that jazz, but the moment he pops the question, everything falls apart.”

“Dean…”

“Makes you wonder, huh? About how strong can a relationship actually be if they’re not willing to try to commit to it permanently. It’s just…”

Dean couldn’t keep talking, because he was suddenly being manhandled and shoved against a wall. Castiel stood right in front of him with a hand on his shoulder and the other on his cheek, piercing him with those bright blue eyes of his.

“Dean Winchester,” he said, dropping his tone to a raspy whisper. “You really need to stop thinking so much.”

Dean agreed, but only because suddenly he was having thoughts he had no business having in the light of day, in the middle of a grocery store, when a woman with an ugly sweater clearing her throat loudly.

“Excuse me, this is a public place,” she said.

“Oh, silly me,” Castiel sighed, turning his head towards her. “I’ll make it quick then. Would you so kindly look away while I suck my boyfriend’s dick?”

The woman made a face of disgust and quickly wheeled her cart away.

“It’s so hot when you horrify homophobes,” Dean chuckled.

“Perhaps I should quit writing and make a living out of it,” Castiel joked, and leaned over to leave a peck on the side of Dean’s lips. Dean closed his eyes, enjoying the warmth and the softness of the contact.

“Just so we’re clear, you didn’t really mean the thing about the…?”

“Must you cheapen the moment?” Castiel huffed in frustration as he backed away. Dean laughed at him.

Turn out he did it just in time, because the woman with the ugly sweater came back with a young store employee in tow.

“There they are!” she said pointing an accusing finger at them. Dean and Cas quickly resume their vegetable choosing like they were completely oblivious to her.

“I’m sorry, ma’am, but they don’t see to be doing anything inappropriate,” the employee shrugged. “And we can’t really refuse service to anyone.”

“But, but…” the woman started protesting.

“Is there anything else?”

“Yeah, lady, some of us are just trying to do our Thanksgiving shopping in peace,” Dean added, crooking an eyebrow in the woman’s direction.

“They were performing sexual acts!” the woman screamed, her face turning red.

“Ma’am, I cannot speak for your sexual life,” Castiel said, with that deadpan expression that so often was more than enough to freak people out. “But I assure you, had we decided to perform a sexual act, we wouldn’t have finished in the minute and a half that took you to come back here.”

The woman let out an offended gasp and fled stomping her feet on the floor. The store employee covered his mouth with the back of his hand to suffocate a chuckle.

“Sorry about that, sirs,” he told them. “Happy Thanksgiving.”

“Right back at you, kid,” Dean replied.

They waited until he was gone to burst out laughing, and after that, Castiel wrapped an arm around Dean’s waist and pulled him close before kissing him again right beneath the ear.

“You’re such a tease,” Dean complained.

“Yes,” Castiel replied, unrepentant. “Now, shall we get the turkey?”

 

* * *

 

“Look at this stuff,” Sam complained while they passed an aisle filled with wreaths, Christmas lights and small snowmen. “It’s not even December. Hell, it’s barely Thanksgiving!”

Meg couldn’t help but to smile at him. To her surprise, she had found she liked the younger Winchester. He was a lot more jaded and cynical about the entire holiday business, and with Dean and Cas in such a giddy mood, unapologetic cynicism was exactly what she needed.

“Hey, you want to see something funny?” she asked. She approached the snowmen and started touching their bellies: “Hail Satan!”

“Hail Satan!” the snowmen repeated in a high pitch tone. “Hail Satan!”

A lady in a green cardigan that was passing by shot them a terrified glanced, crossed herself and ran for her life. Sam completely cracked up in her wake.

“You’re terrible!”

“I am adorable,” Meg replied, sticking her tongue out at him.

“Yeah,” Sam muttered. “You are that too.”

An awkward silence fell between the two as Meg raised an eyebrow and Sam pretended to be reading the list Dean had given them.

“Okay, let’s not do that,” Meg said in the end after they had found the seasoning they were supposed to be looking for. “I know for a fact you have a girl back in California.”

“Oh, you’ve heard about that,” Sam said. He was smiling, but his tone was filled with sadness and suddenly, he seemed entirely too interested in the shopping.

“Yes, I’ve heard about that,” Meg replied, rolling her eyes. “Beautiful, wonderful Doctor Jess Moore. Dean brags constantly about how much of power couple you two are, Mr. Successful Lawyer.”

Sam laughed again, but it sounded forced, so Meg regretted her big mouth immediately. The last thing she wanted was make her band new friend uncomfortable.

“Should we take extra spicy peppermint instead of the common one?” she asked.

“And watch Dean burning his own tongue with it?” Sam scoffed. Then, after a few seconds: “Let’s do it.”

And that was how Meg knew everything was forgiven.

They found a bunch of shit that wasn’t on the list, like plastic plates and glasses and kitchenware Meg happily added to the cart.

“They were basically the only thing that was untouched in my place,” she explained to Sam. “But I threw them off anyway because for what I knew, this psycho could have poisoned them or something.”

“So you’re basically rebuilding your life from scratch,” Sam said. He sounded impressed, so Meg shrugged it off.

“It wouldn’t be the first time,” she said. “It’s not as hard or heroic as those Lifetime movies would have you believe.”

“Oh, I hate those,” he huffed. “And the worst part is that they’re all there is on TV this time of the year.”

“Right?” Meg exclaimed, so glad to find someone who agreed with her on that. “You know, my apartment doesn’t have a TV. Or much else, really. But if you’re into minimalism and walls decorated with slurs, you could totally crash there the next couple of days.”

“Really?”

“Well, yeah, since I took up your room,” Meg pointed out. “And I imagine even my second-hand mattress is better than the couch and the pitiful look in Dean’s eyes.”

Sam reflected on it for a moment. Meg thought he was going to point out the most obvious thing: why didn’t _she_ stay at _her_ apartment? Why was she offering it up instead of trying to reclaim it as its own again? Wasn’t that the perfect opportunity to force herself to go back there?

But instead of all those questions Meg wouldn’t have honestly known how to answer, he said:

“That actually sounds pretty great.”

 

* * *

 

“That does not sound great!” Dean protested. “That sounds like the opposite of great! You’re supposed to stay with family for Thanksgiving!”

“Is there a law written in stone somewhere that says you can’t sleep somewhere else after dinner?” Sam replied, irritated. “Because let me tell you, that couch of yours is no fluffy cloud!”

In the backseat of the Impala, with the grocery bags laying between them, Castiel shot Meg an apologetic look. Meg didn’t need to look at it to understand the brothers bickering like that was a common occurrence. Dean had been scandalized when Sam had brought up the possibility of staying at Meg’s apartment, but not even the bribery of riding shotgun had persuaded Sam.

“I just think it will be great for me to have some peace right now,” Sam argued.

“So what, you can’t have peace at our home? Is that it? Is that what you’re saying?”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Dean,” Meg intervened, frankly tired of the stupid fight. “He’s a grown man. Overgrown, actually. Let him decide what’s best for him.”

“Shut up, you’re a bad influence on him!” Dean snapped. “Cas, he listens to you. Tell him it’s a terrible idea!”

“Do not drag me into this,” Castiel replied, ostensibly looking outside the window to wash his hands of them all.

“I’m staying in Meg’s apartment,” Sam declared firmly. Meg could have sworn he was still hesitant five minutes ago, but Dean’s opposition to the idea had cemented his decision. “At least there I’ll have an actual mattress to sleep on because you didn’t even bother to get another, even though you knew I was coming to visit!”

“Fine!” Dean huffed. “Do whatever you want!”

“Fine! That’s exactly what I’ll do!”

“Fine!”

“Fine!”

Meg thought she heard them muttering “Fine!” a couple more times under their breaths, but not even them could be that childish and desperate to have the last words, right? She tried catching Castiel’s eye again, but he was making a point to ignore everything that went on inside the car.

So that was awkward. Also awkward: helping Dean take the bags out of the car because “it’ the least you can do before you make a run for it since you so obviously don’t want to be here”. And after another passive-aggressive stare-off, Sam declared maybe it would be a good idea if he grabbed his bag and left it at Meg’s apartment right then. Dean repeated he could do as he pleased and locked himself in the kitchen with the turkey. Castiel breathed in deeply.

“Go,” he told them. “I’ll try calming him down.”

“Are you sure we can’t just sedate them both?” Meg suggested in a whisper.

At least that got Castiel to smile.

“They just need to blow off some steam,” he explained, with the expertise of someone who had been caught in the middle of the Winchesters tantrums far too many times. “Trust me, it will be fine by the time dinner is ready.”

Meg was still unsure: Dean looked pretty pissed and Sam was sporting what could only be described as a bitch-face, and none of them seemed willing to back down. But she decided to trust Castiel’s judgment on the Winchesters’ sibling rivalry.

“Just drive carefully,” he added, shooting a glance at the snow clouds gathering above them.

“Don’t worry,” Meg said. “We’ll be back before the storm hits.”

Castiel gave her a quick hug at the door. Meg stood rigidly, because that was new and she wasn’t exactly sure why was he doing that. After a few seconds, she tapped her fingers on Castiel’s arm and he let her go, seemingly as surprised as her. It took them a second to realize Sam was standing right behind them, staring them like he was unsure what to say.

“Uh…”

“Sam,” Castiel walked up to him and wrapped his arms around him too. Meg didn’t know if he meant to dissipate the awkwardness like that, but all he managed to do was make it even worse.

“Okay,” Sam said, as Castiel broke the hug. “You do know we’ll be back in just a bit, right?”

“I am aware of that,” Castiel replied. “But there’s never a wrong time to… show appreciation for friends. Especially during the holidays.”

He was spouting bullshit, and one look at Sam indicated Meg that he thought it too. At this point, the best they could do was simply end with everyone’s suffering then and there, so she opened the door.

“Save some of the little pies for us.”

“Will do,” Castiel promised as they both crossed the door and walked to Meg’s Beetle (Sam had to comically duck to get in). Once inside, they stayed in silence for a second or two.

“So was that weird for you too?”

“Oh, yeah,” Sam confirmed. “Yeah. Super weird. But, you know, Castiel is a writer. He’s bound to be weird.”

“Guess you’re right,” Meg chuckled as she turned on the engine.


	16. Kindred Spirits

“Do you need help with anything?”

“No.”

Dean was stuffing the turkey like it had bad-mouthed his mother, pushing the vegetables in with such rage Castiel thought the poor animal was lucky to be dead. He stood on the kitchen’s doorway just looking at his boyfriend in silence. He knew Dean knew he was still there, but if he wasn’t in a talking mood, the best was just to wait for him to get over it.

“So do you want to talk about it?” Castiel asked after the turkey was properly filled and tied up.

“No,” Dean repeated. He put the turkey inside the oven and slammed it close as if to reaffirm his point.

“Very well,” Castiel nodded. “I’ll go to my studio and write for a while.”

“Yeah, whatever you want, Cas,” Dean muttered, distractedly taking out the spices out of the bag to make the sauces.

Castiel still waited a few seconds longer before trying to take a step away…

“I mean, is it really that horrible on my part to not want him to be alone in a moment like this?” Dean practically shouted as he slammed a bowl on the kitchen counter. “Am I such a bad guy for wanting to be there for him? That’s my job, isn’t it? Taking care of my pain in the ass little brother.”

And there it was. Castiel patiently returned to just where he was.

“Of course I don’t think you’re doing something wrong, Dean,” he said. “I can assure you Sam doesn’t think so either.”

“Yeah? How do you know?” Dean asked, as he started chopping the vegetables that would go into the sauce. Castiel would have approached him and given him a hug, but he figured it’d be best to wait until Dean had laid off any sharp objects.

“Because he knows the sacrifices you’ve made for him. He knows you care about him more than you care about anything else,” Castiel declared. “This is obvious.”

“Well, if it so obvious…”

“But since you are both the most irritatingly stubborn and emotionally constipated men to walk this earth,” Castiel continued, completely ignoring Dean’s glare, “you cannot properly discuss each other’s needs in a calm way that would lead to a mature understanding that you are both your own person, and that makes you both irritable and irrational.”

Dean stopped throwing random vegetables at the bowl and stared at Castel.

“Could you repeat that, but without all the pretentious words?”

“You think you know what’s best for Sam,” Castiel concluded. “But Sam just has other ideas. And it’s okay that he does, because as Meg kindly pointed out, he is an adult.”

Dean didn’t answer. He just stared down the food he was cooking with his jaw clenched and his shoulders slumped. Castiel strode inside the kitchen and gently wrapped his arms around Dean’s waist to pull him closer.

“Yes, he might be in pain and confused, but he has explicitly asked you for some space,” he continued. “I say you give it to him and let him figure out what he should do next. If he feels he needs to be alone right now, let him. Trust that he’ll know what’s best for him.”

“I do trust him,” Dean grumbled, but he was still irritated and maybe a little sad.

“You should,” he said. “You raised him well.”

“You mean dad raised him well.”

“I know what I meant and so do you,” Castiel shrugged and pressed his lips against Dean’s rough cheek. When he tried to move away, Dean held his hand to stop him.

“You know, maybe I do need help with some things around here,” he said. “But you need to promise you will not try to snack on the little mini-pies. _And_ that you’ll keep your hands to yourself,” he demanded when a shit-eating grin appeared in Castiel’s face.

“I will try to comply with your difficult demands,” he said, hugging Dean. “But I won’t make such promises.”

In fact, he was already sliding a hand up the back of Dean’s shirt. Dean sighed, but he didn’t pull away.

“You’re a hazard to cook around,” he groaned. Castiel merely laughed in his ear.

 

* * *

 

“Woah.”

“Yeah.”

After the night when she failed to sleep there, Meg had come back with some jars of paint to cover the slurs, but aside from that she had made very few changes to the place. Like, none at all, really. So now there was a big white rectangle on the otherwise empty living room.

“I’m thinking about getting an aquarium,” Meg commented, but Sam didn’t laugh at her joke. He was staring around, the room, trying to imagine it in its better days or maybe just picturing it completely destroyed, like Meg did every time she waked in there. “Hey, if it’s too depressing to you, we can always go back with Bert and Ernie…”

“No,” Sam replied, a little too fast. “No, it’s fine here. I’ll stay here.”

And he deposited his duffle bag in the middle of the room as if to punctuate those words.

“Alright,” Meg shrugged. “I’ll give you the tour.”

The tour lasted about ten minutes, and consisted of her showing him the bedroom and the bathroom and explaining to him how to work the faucets to get warm water. She was pretty certain Sam didn’t listen to a word she said, too busy staring looking at the “BITCH” scribbled on the wall. Meg had tried scrubbing it clean and the letters were faded, but it didn’t take too much imagination to figure out what they said.

“And you tell me the insurance won’t cover it?”

“Nope. That’s what I get for just choosing the most basic package.”

“That can’t be right. Do you have a copy of the policy?”

“Yeah, it’s right in my…” Meg started, but stopped to throw a suspicious look at Sam. “Wait, you’re not going to charge me for revising it, are you?”

“No,” Sam shook his head. “I just want to take a look at it. Completely free of charge, I promise.”

Meg’s kitchen didn’t have much except for two old stools Dean had got her from the bar and the fridge, which was the only thing the asshole didn’t manage to destroy. And of course, inside the fridge there was the six-pack Meg had bought the night she tried to stay there. Maybe Castiel had a point when he worried about her alcohol intake.

In any case, Meg opened two cans and sat in front of Sam while he read the policy with a little frown of concentration between his eyebrows. His eyes moved fast over the page, following his finger over the small letters with such passion Meg felt like she should remind him he wasn’t about to defend her on a murder trial or something like that. Then again, she didn’t want to interrupt him because it was actually kind of cute the way he pursed his lips and scratch the back of his neck and…

Holy shit, how long had it been since she last got laid? Meg took a long gulp from her beer and reminded herself Sam had a girlfriend who was actually a doctor and not a wannabe who never had enough money for med school.

“There it is!” Sam exclaimed, triumphant. “Valuable items of great size and electronics above a certain value are covered in case they’re vandalized.”

“Really?” Meg snatched the papers from Sam’s hands in order to read it with her own eyes. “Oh, those cheating bastards… they just told me they couldn’t pay me anything because nothing was stolen!”

“Yeah, insurance companies do that,” he said. “But under this clause they should pay you for your couch, your bed, your TV and your computer. Also, they have to pay for the painting since that’s part of the apartment’s integrity. It says it right here,” he added, pointing at another clause.

“Wonderful,” Meg said, only half sarcastically. “Now I have to convince them to put their money where their mouth is.”

“Well, if they refuse, tell them to expect a call from your lawyer,” Sam said. “That always intimidates them. And if it doesn’t work, I’ll call them and use my lawyer voice on them.”

“You have a lawyer voice?”

“Indeed, your Honor,” Sam said, squaring his shoulders and looking at Meg from all the way up his full height. “Don’t you have a nurse voice?”

“Why, I’m only allowed to use it during work hours,” Meg replied in the soothing, sweet tone she used with scare patients. “But you should take all your meds and go to bed early.”

Sam chuckled, and Meg noticed he got some really cute dimples when he did that.

She really needed to go back to where other people could stop her from doing something reckless and stupid. Although, to be fair, Sam seemed like a pretty smart guy.

Okay, time to stop.

“We should probably go back,” Meg commented. “Dean won’t forgive us if we miss his turkey.”

“Yeah,” Sam sighed.

They didn’t move for a couple of seconds. It was like Sam wanted to add something else but he wasn’t sure how, and Meg wasn’t sure how to ask, so when the silence started to become too heavy, she grabbed the cans and turned her back on Sam to stop looking at him for a second.

The thing with that was that when she did, she ended facing the window and noticing something she didn’t know when exactly happened: the glass was misty, and there was a thick layer of white on the ledge. Meg threw away the cans and cleaned the window with her sleeve to look outside.

“Well, that’s gonna slow us down,” she muttered.

 

* * *

 

There was an alarm echoing inside his brain when Dean opened his eyes. Was the turkey ready? It couldn’t be, there was still at least an hour left. Was it Sam and Meg ringing the doorbell? No, they had keys, it wasn’t…

Then he realized what it was.

“Cas,” he said, rolling over in bed. “Cas, it’s your cellphone.”

Castiel emerged from their post-coital nap the same way he emerged from any sleep: grumpily and reluctantly.

“Tell them I’m not home,” he said rolling over and covering his head with a pillow.

Dean giggled at him and kissed him on the shoulder when he stretched over him to pick it up.

“Yeah?”

“So is the dinner going to take long?” Meg’s voice asked on the other end.

“Uh, not really. We were just… finishing cooking,” Dean lied, looking at the mess of tangled sheets on the floor and then at Cas’ shamelessly naked butt right next to him.

“Damn, and here I was hoping you still had a million things to do.”

“Why?”

“Haven’t you noticed the sudden drop of temperature?”

Now that she mentioned it, it was a bit chilly. He raised his head towards the window to notice the snowflakes spiraling down right beyond it.

“Oh,” he said. “No, I didn’t notice it was snowing. The kitchen was… hot.”

“You know, I was going to try your turkey,” Meg said and Dean could swear he heard her rolling her eyes. “But now I have a mental image that might turn me vegetarian forever.”

“Oh, come on,” Dean protested. “We didn’t do anything to or around the turkey.”

“Must you give her that sort of information?” Castiel asked, finally opening one eye.

“Whatever,” Meg said, skeptical. “We’re driving back, but they’re closing up some roads, so it might be a while.”

“I hear you,” Dean said. “Be careful, okay?”

Meg promised they would and hanged up. Castiel sat up on the bed, rubbing his eyes.

“So does that mean that I can snack on the mini-pies?” he asked.

Dean grabbed him by the shoulder and pinned him back down to the mattress.

“Oh, I’ll give you something to snack on,” he growled in his ear.

Castiel laughed until Dean shut him up with a kiss.

So they were entertained until the kitchen alarm went off, and that was probably the reason they didn’t give a second thought to the fact the turkey was ready but Meg and Sam weren’t there yet up until that point.

“It’s getting worse outside,” Castiel commented as Dean pulled the turkey out of the oven. The night had gone completely ark, and the garden was covered in snowflakes flurrying down and crashing against the window. He turned on the TV, only to be met with the news that the storm was definitely turning into a freaking blizzard and they were recommending everybody to stay outside.

Dean paled beneath his freckles.

“Call them again,” he said.

There must have been some post down, because it wasn’t until the third time he hit send that the call went through, and even then, he couldn’t hear Meg properly.

“We’re alright,” she informed him. “We’re fine, we just… the tire was flat, so we…”

“What? Meg, I can’t hear you!” Castiel shouted. “Where are you?”

“… back to the apartment,” she said. “Sorry, Cas, I don’t think we can make it until… and they fucking clean the roads.”

“Alright,” Castiel said. “No, stay there. Stay safe. We’ll see you in the morning.”

“Yeah,” Meg replied, and there wasn’t any sort of interference in her bitterness when she added: “Happy Thanksgiving.”

Dean slammed the platter down with frustration. They sat on the table, looking at all the food that was supposed to feed at least four people, and Castiel suddenly felt deeply sad. Despite all the tension between the brothers and Jess not being there, he really had been looking forward to that dinner. He had been busy revising his manuscript, Meg and Dean had been working hard and they only saw Sam a couple of times a year. So he really wanted all of them to hang out that night like they hadn’t had time to in a while. Perhaps even take Dean’s offer to play Dungeons and Dragons.

And now they were snowed in at different parts of the town, and they had two empty chairs and a turkey they couldn’t possibly finish on their own.

“Stupid weather,” Dean put voice to his thoughts, leaning back on the chair and crossing his arms.

“Do you want to say what you’re thankful for?”

“Not really in the mood, Cas.”

“Yes, I understand,” Castiel sighed. He picked one of the mini-pies and popped into his mouth, but he didn’t really enjoy chewing it. “I’m thankful because we at least have food,” he said, suddenly. “I can’t imagine Meg’s apartment is stocked even for a light dinner.”

Dean chuckle, but it was a joyless sound.

“You can bet that she at least has some alcohol in there.”

“That’s not good,” Castiel worried. “They shouldn’t be drinking in an empty stomach.”

“Well, what else are they going to do?” Dean said, taking a swig of his beer. “Completely alone in that apartment for the night, with no TV, no food and no Internet, the most they can do to keep themselves busy is get drunk and…”

His voice trailed off. Castiel looked at him, a cold horror starting to climb up from his stomach.

“They would not.”

“No,” Dean shook his head. “No, of course not. Sam has a lot going on in his head with the whole Jess thing, and he isn’t that kind of guy at all.”

It sounded a lot like he was making excuses and they both knew it, so they went quiet.

“They did seem to be getting along awfully well,” Castiel whispered. “Like kindred spirits.”

“Still,” Dean huffed. “They wouldn’t.”

“Meg does have a very casual attitude towards sex,” Castiel added, the possibility becoming more and more real by the second.

“Yeah, but she’s not stupid,” Dean replied. “They don’t have condoms, she wouldn’t take the risk.”

“What if she does and we don’t know?” Castiel argued. “What if they…? You know, what if they…?”

“Hook up?” Dean said, and it was as if saying the word out loud made the possibility ten times more real. Castiel looked at his boyfriend, the cold horror reaching up his chest. “I mean, being real, it could happen. They’re adults. They’re responsible for their actions. It’s none of our business.”

Castiel knew he was right, but the horror wouldn’t let up. There were a bunch of scenarios suddenly running through his head and he didn’t like any of them.

“What if she gets pregnant?”

“Cas, oh, my God…”

“Alright, what if she decides to strike up a relationship with Sam and moves to California with him?” he suggested, going for his less extreme scenario. “I mean, there’s nothing stopping her here. And she could go to Med School over there, maybe that would even be better for her, and if…”

“Okay, you’re rambling,” Dean interrupted him. “Why do you say all those things like they were some sort of tragedy that could overcome her? Are you trying to tell me that the general consensus is that marrying my brother is a really awful fate or something like that?”

“I’m not saying that, just…” Castiel sopped, trying to find the words for what he was trying to say. “I just got used to having her here. She… balances us.”

Dean didn’t answer immediately. He seemed to be roaming Castiel’s words, silently weighing them.

“Yeah, I see your point,” he said. “I mean, we fight less when she’s around.”

“Yes. Meg can see when we’re blowing something out of proportion and stop our destructive behaviors.”

“Fancy way to say she calls us on our bullshit,” Dean snorted. But he did see what Castiel was getting at. “Look, she’s our friend, okay? And if she’s happy with Sam and she wants to move away, well, then there’s that. It’s none of our business and we can’t really stop her.”

Castiel remained silent for a second.

“And would you be okay with her dating Sam?”

“None of my business,” Dean insisted.

“And with them having a baby that calls you Uncle Dean?”

“Well, now you’re just trolling me,” Dean complained, and Castiel was too busy laughing to respond to that accusation.


	17. Permanent

Meg ended the call and resisted the temptation to open the window and throw her cellphone out in the snow. Despite all the teasing and joking she had put Dean through; she was actually looking forward to that stupid dinner. It was the first time in forever she actually celebrated Thanksgiving, and now, thanks to the stupid Earth rotation, she was stuck miles away from any delicious turkey. They had walked downstairs to see if they could borrow something from Suzie only to discover she wasn’t home, probably spending the night with her nephews. So they were basically snowed in in an empty building, so they sat on the floor with their four cans of beer and a bag of peanuts Sam had found in the depths of Meg’s cabinets.

It was like the beginning of a horror movie. Or a porno. Meg didn’t know which prospect would cheer her up more.

“Well, here’s to…” Sam said, raising his can, but they were both too blue to come up with a cheerful toast.

“Here’s to never having a good idea again,” Meg said.

Sam gave her a sad smile, but clanked her can against hers either way.

“You know, I was thinking this is the perfect setting for the ghost of a dead serial killer to come and get us,” Sam commented.

“Oh, yeah,” Meg laughed, because the fact that they were both thinking just that was hilarious in a very depressing way. “That would be an appropriate ending for this night.”

They stayed in silence for a while, but the door didn’t burst open and no invisible axe started dismembering them. So they wouldn’t even have that consolation.

“Still not the worst Thanksgiving ever,” Meg muttered after a while. “At least I have a place to be snowed in that isn’t a car without enough battery to keep the heating on.”

Sam reflected on it for a second, but then shook his head.

“No, this is definitely giving all the others a run for their money,” he said.

“Yeah, it has to be at least top five,” Meg admitted.

They both drink from their cans in silence. Sam sighed and slumped his shoulders, defeated.

“I shouldn’t even be here.”

“Okay, fine,” Meg huffed. “Sorry I suggested you stayed here, and sorry we got distracted with my stupid problems.”

“No, that’s not what I meant,” he said. “I shouldn’t be here, in Sioux Falls. I should have gone to Newport Beach with Jess.”

“The weather would be nicer over there for sure,” Meg tried to joke. She was predicting Sam was about to pour his heart out or to tell something he hadn’t even told his brother. But the thing was, she probably wasn’t the most adequate person to lend an ear to his worries. Missouri was right: after certain hour and under certain circumstances, her empathy simply shut down.

“I should have gone after her,” Sam continued, like he hadn’t even heard Meg’s joke. “When she told me she was spending Thanksgiving with her family, I should have gone with her and try to work things out instead of coming here like a coward.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Meg nodded. “Or you could have fought with her all the way to Newport Beach and completely ruin whatever trace of a relationship you two had left.”

Sam, who was obviously expecting some sort of sympathy, blinked at her in surprise.

“Twenty minutes ago you were fighting with Dean because he wouldn’t get off your back,” Meg pointed out. “What makes you think Jess would have reacted differently if you haven’t given her space?”

“She did tell me not to bother calling her for a while,” Sam admitted under his breath.

“Pro tip: usually when women say we want to be left alone, we mean it,” Meg said. “So you did the right thing coming here.”

Sam pursed his lips, like he literally needed to chew on Meg’s words for several seconds.

“I just don’t understand why she was so upset,” he said. “I proposed. Isn’t that supposed to be something good?”

“Well, yeah, you would think,” Meg said, trying her voice not to be as sarcastic as she felt. “But search your feelings, young Winchester. You know exactly why she said no.”

“Did you just Darth Vader me?” Sam asked.

“Don’t change the subject.”

Sam drank a couple of gulps from his beer, frowning like he was deep in thought while Meg smashed some peanuts open and shoved hem into her mouth. Goddammit, there’d be some leftovers when they went back or…

“I guess she… didn’t precisely say no,” Sam muttered, startling her and her hungry thoughts. “She might have said _‘not yet’_.”

Meg was too busy swallowing, but Sam interpreted that silence as an invitation to keep going.

“She’s just been so busy with her internship, I didn’t think… but when the firm offered me a permanent position, I figured we were ready. I wanted us to be ready,” Sam continued. “I don’t think she understands it, because she’d always have a normal life, a normal family; I don’t think she gets how much I’ve always wanted that for me. To be married, to start a family on my own. Do you understand?”

“I guess,” Meg said cautiously. “But maybe that’s exactly your problem. Marrying someone is sort of a permanent thing. She knows you want to be married, but do you want to be married _to her_ or will just anyone do? ‘Cause there’s a bit of a difference for a decision so huge.”

Sam opened his mouth, but he couldn’t come up with anything to retort. After a few seconds, he closed it again and sipped from his beer.

“I never… I mean, of course I love Jess,” he said. “But I guess I see how she would think I’m rushing into this.”

“Exactly,” Meg said. “I suggest you talk to her after this weekend, apologize profusely and promise you will ask again only when you’re both ready.”

“And what if she’s still mad at me?”

“Then it sucks to be you,” Meg shrugged. “But you got to respect what she decides. Otherwise, you’re just a jerk.”

She finished what was left of a beer in just one gulp, and only when she put it down to reach for another can she realized Sam was staring at her.

“What?”

“Nothing, I just… thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Meg shrugged. “I did nothing but state the obvious, but you’re welcome.”

“Yeah, but when you said it, it became much clearer,” he said. “So thanks.”

Meg just shrugged a little, as if to take off the importance of it, and opened her second can of beer.

“You never felt that way?” he asked. “Like you needed to settle down somewhere, have an actual home? A normal life?”

“Nope.”

“I mean, I know Dean felt it,” Sam continued, while Meg just chugged down her beer. “Otherwise, he wouldn’t be living with Cas.”

“Well, those two are just disgustingly domestic,” Meg said. “That’s not for me, though. I like to be free, go wherever I please whenever I please. Have nothing tying me down if I decide to get the hell out of dodge for no reason whatsoever.”

Just as the words left her mouth, she realized they sounded like a load of bullshit. Well, they might have been true once, but now they were bullshit, and the fact she had been holding on to a destroyed apartment for months was a testament to that. The reason she had chosen Sioux Falls in the first place was because that had been the only place where she’d had some semblance of normality growing up, some semblance of being a normal girl with a normal boy who liked her. And she had stayed even though she had been on the brink of literally losing everything there. And maybe she had lost everything.

But she hadn’t left.

That made her a liar, and of course Sam saw through it too.

“Would you?” Sam asked. “Just up and leave one day?”

“Well, I don’t plan to in the immediate future,” Meg admitted. “Maybe I’m just growing old.”

Sam chuckled a little and Meg just glanced at him, silently demanding an explanation.

“I was just thinking that Dean and Castiel might not like that,” he admitted, shrinking a little like he thought Meg was going to hit him for saying that. And he deserved it, because that was a stupid argument, but Meg just didn’t have the energy for it.

“So what? They’re my friends, but it’s not like they own me or anything. And besides, I think they’ll be delighted the day I finally get off their hairs so they can get it dirty with other stuff.”

“Woah, graphic,” Sam replied, closing his eyes with a horrified grimace. Meg laughed at his horror, taking notes to make Sam even more uncomfortable soon. “I mean it, Meg,” he insisted. “They really like having you with them.”

“And I really like being around them,” Meg admitted. “Doesn’t change the fact they’re Dean and Cas and I’m not really into third-wheeling.”

That was a lie as well, but at least one that Sam could believe, because he didn’t insist.

The truth was that Castiel and Dean never made her feel like she was unwelcome or like it was a hinder to have her in their home. The only one who kept saying they would inevitably get tired of her presence there was Meg and that was because, according to her experience, it always ended that way. She needed to keep some distance between them for the same reason she needed to keep her gas tank full: because despite all the evidence of the contrary, she was certain none of it was permanent.

And now she was analyzing her own insecurities too deeply for having drunk just two beers. God, she really was growing old.

“I say we tuck in early,” she said stretching her arms. “It’s not like we have something better to do anyway.”

“Oh, okay,” Sam said, a little taken aback by the brusque change in conversation. “Do you have some blankets?”

“Why do you need blankets? The heating’s working just fine and we have coats.”

Sam opened his mouth and then closed it again, like he had no idea how to explain what he wanted to say. Meg just observed until it dawned on her.

“Oh, don’t be silly,” she rolled her eyes. “We’re sharing.”

“You sure? I wouldn’t want to bother you…”

“And I wouldn’t want you to freeze or have a contracture for sleeping on the floor,” Meg replied. “Come on, the mattress is big enough.”

It was big enough that they could lie down side to side without touching each other, but Meg hadn’t counted on Sam’s weight sinking it so far down. So no matter how much she tried to stay on the other side of the mattress, she ended up sliding until her back was against him over and over.

Not that Sam cared. He had fallen fast asleep the moment he closed his eyes. And not only that, he snored. Loudly. So much so that Meg was tempted to wake up him and tell him that maybe Jess didn’t want to marry him because it was just impossible to sleep by his side. What she did instead was take out her cellphone and made a short video of him snoring before sending it to Dean, because she was bored and couldn’t sleep and figured Dean would appreciate the hilarity of the situation.

She thought she wouldn’t get an answer until the following day, but her phone chirped less than a minute later with a reply:

_> Try getting him on his side._

Meg figured she had nothing to lose. And if Sam woke up, well, she’d just explain exactly what she was doing. It was a bit like pushing a boulder (and holy shit, Sam was _ripped_ ), but slowly, perhaps because having someone trying to move you in your sleep was annoying, Sam rolled over to lay on his left side with his back to Meg. His snoring stopped immediately.

“Amazing,” Meg muttered to herself, and texted the results to Dean.

_> How did you know that?_

_> You live with the moose long enough, you learn a few tricks, _Dean replied _. You guys ok?_

_> We’re fine. See u in the morning._

She had just laid down to sleep when her cellphone’s screen lit up again.

_> Cas says that two thin blankets are better than one thick blanket to keep warm. Or something like that._

_> Y are u guys even still up?_

_> We could ask you the same. And write full words, dammit, you’re not 16._

_> Fine. Just so you know, if we can’t get back tomorrow, I’m eating your brother._

_> You are not!_

Another message appeared underneath that one.

_> If you ration him properly, you could survive an entire winter in there, _Castiel wrote.

_> That’s the spirit! ;)_

Meg snickered, imagining Dean’s face at the idea of her cannibalizing Sam. She curled up in the bed and closed her eyes.

Two hours later she was woken by not only the resume of the snoring, but also an arm hitting her in the face. Cursing under her breath, Meg found two blankets and made a nest for herself in the living room.

 

* * *

 

Dean had woken up early to make a good breakfast for their starving guests. Castiel had insisted in getting up and helping him but of course, that meant he turned on the TV to check the forecast and promptly fell asleep with his head in the armrest. If he hadn’t, he would have found out that the storm had receded and the roads were being cleared, so Meg and Sam ought to be back soon.

They still took an hour and a half longer than he had calculated, and by then the pancakes were cold and Dean was sleeping on the couch as well, with Castiel’s head on his lap. He startled when the door cracked opened and Meg walked in. She looked so much like she’d had a bad day at the hospital (pale and haggard and with her hair everywhere) that Dean’s first impulse was to offer her a beer. Sam, on the other hand, looked as cool as a cucumber and like he hadn’t slept so well in ages.

“Hey, the bold adventurers return,” Dean greeted them, pushing Castiel a little, who woke up shaking his head like a dog coming out of water. “How bad was it?”

“Terrible,” Meg replied. “We only had one bag of peanuts and…”

Her voice trailed off, because Dean had just thrown his arms around her and squeezed her tight against him.

“Okay, what is with you guys and hugs?” she asked, narrowing her eyes at him.

“Nothing, I’m just glad to see you,” Dean shrugged. “And I’m glad you didn’t get eaten,” he added, moving to hug Sam too.

“What?”

“It’s a… never mind. Let’s have breakfast!”

Breakfast consisted in Sam gulping down everything Dean put in front of him like he really had just returned from a hundred years old exile while Meg rambled on about how a terrible night it had been.

“And the tree, goddammit! It kept creaking and bumping against the window, ugh… I’m going to write to the landlord and tell him to cut it off, because I just can’t live like this anymore…”

“I slept well,” Sam added between bites.

“But the worst part was this morning,” Meg continued after glaring at him. “We got out and found out at least two of the tires were completely deflated. We had to change one and then drive here really, really slowly…”

“How that happened?” Dean asked, frowning. “Tires don’t just deflate like that.”

“Well, these ones did,” Meg groaned. “And not only that: some asshole scratched it while trying to park or something, I don’t know. I just know that now there’s a really big blemish on my poor Beetle and I don’t know if I’ll have the money to fix that too.”

“Dean could get you a discount at the workshop,” Castiel suggested.

“And maybe you’ll have something left after the insurance pays you.”

“Oh, my God, stop being so positive and let me whine!” Meg exclaimed, throwing pieces of her pancakes at the two.

Dean laughed like everyone else, but he had a strange uneasy feeling in his stomach. For some reason, he remembered the red Corolla that had followed them to Mount Rushmore, and no matter how hard he tried to tell himself the two things were only connected by his own paranoia, he still couldn’t shake the disturbing thought that something else was going on there.

“I’ll take a look at it,” he promised her. “You look like you need to rest, so do that, and we’ll have an actual Thanksgiving dinner tonight, okay?”

“That sounds awesome,” Meg sighed. “Are there any mini-pies left?”

“Sorry…”

“Yes, there are,” Dean replied. “I hid them from you,” he explained to Castiel disconcerted face, which immediately turned into a gesture of utter betrayal. Meg snorted and leaned to Castiel as if to tell him a secret:

“Your boyfriend is a sweetheart,” she said, loud enough for Dean to hear it.

 

* * *

 

The blemish on Meg’s Beetle didn’t look as something that would happen if another car had grazed it. It was too straight and too thin for it. Instead, it looked like someone had dragged a key against it, with all the intention of ruining the paint. The tires also looked like someone had purposefully messed with them: there were slashes in the two of them, as if someone had stabbed them with fury.

Or maybe the pavement on Meg’s street was shitty. Dean couldn’t discard that possibility.

But it didn’t matter how much he tried to convince himself he was just being paranoid about the whole thing, he couldn’t help but to think that perhaps someone had done those things. And maybe if the storm hadn’t made it impossible to be out on the street, Meg’s Beetle would have suffered the same fate as her apartment.

It was a gloomy thought and he didn’t have any evidence that he was right, except for his gut telling him so. He sat down next to the car, looking at it like a doctor would look at a very ill patient. Should he tell her? She hadn’t straight up said so, but there was a reason she had almost gone _Kill Bill_ on Sam, there was a reason she couldn’t sleep in her apartment. She was still scared, so maybe telling her someone had tried to destroy her car wasn’t the best thing for her psyche right now. Should he call Sheriff Mills? Well, and tell her what? “Yes, I am aware there’s no way to know if I’m right, yes, I know how I sound, but we never found out who did it, did we? What if he’s still got it out for Meg?”

Dean was pretty certain it was a guy: it was too angry and too aggressive to be a woman. At the same time, it wasn’t sloppy enough to be a man being led by his emotions. This had been calculated and…

God, he sounded like one of Cas’ detectives. No, he was letting his imagination get carried away. He needed to stop. That was no way to help Meg out and…

“Hey.”

Dean practically fell off his chair, and when he managed to recover his balance, he looked at his brother, annoyed.

“A little warning next time?” he groaned, getting up to start changing the tires, which was what he was supposed to be doing anyway. Sam raised an eyebrow, but didn’t comment on it.

“You need help with that?”

Dean was about to say he could handle it, but then he realized Sam had only offered it because he needed to talk.

“Yeah, sure. Get me the lug wrench.”

They worked on the tire for a few minutes in silence. If Sam had something to say, he wasn’t going to come out and say it, so Dean started:

“The Great Canyon,” he said, and when Sam looked at him confused, he continued: “Dad took us to the Great Canyon that summer. You were what, four, five? We did this excursion, and you laughed all the way because…”

“Your donkey wouldn’t stop farting,” Sam remembered with a smile. “You rode a farty donkey.”

“That was a good one,” Dean pointed out while Sam chuckled.

“I guess,” Sam admitted. He stayed quiet for a few more seconds while Dean adjusted the tire and then said: “Sorry… about everything I said. It’s been a rough week.”

“Don’t sweat it,” Dean shrugged.

And just like that, everything was alright again in Winchesterland. Weren’t the holidays magical?

“Meg helped me clear my head a lot,” Sam continued.

“You’re not planning on stealing her away to California, are you?”

“What?”

“Nothing, never mind,” Dean shook his head.

“No, I’ve got a lot to talk about with Jess,” Sam said, deciding for his own good not to ask Dean to explain that joke. “But, you know… after I get to eat your turkey.”

“I love that plan,” Dean nodded. “Go wake Meg up and make sure Cas doesn’t find the mini-pies.”

Sam was about to exit the garage when Dean stopped him again:

“You didn’t happen to see a red Corolla around Meg’s place? Last night, or maybe this morning?”

Sam frowned at him again. “No, why?”

“No reason,” Dean lied.


	18. Three Is A Crowd

On Sunday, Sam would have sneaked out of the house as quietly as he came, except that Dean already knew he was going to do that, so he was up and waiting for him at the kitchen with coffee and toasts, and a half-asleep Meg dressed in her scrubs already, clearly meaning to go to work straight from the bus station.

“Like we were going to let you,” Dean said when Sam looked at them both, completely defeated. Meg raised her mug at him as a greeting.

“Figures,” Sam sighed and sat down to have some breakfast. “And Castiel?”

“Says it was nice seeing you and reminded you that if things don’t go well with Jess, you can spend Christmas with us too,” Dean said. “There might have been more swearing and groaning, but that was the overall message. I tried waking him up…”

“Let him rest,” Meg replied, gulping her coffee down like it wasn’t boiling hot. “He’s been working hard on the second draft…”

“He’s been staring into space or watching kitten videos on YouTube,” Dean rolled his eyes. “He won’t start actually working on it until Rachel sends him an e-mail reminding him of his deadline. That poor woman doesn’t deserve to be his agent.”

“Well, you should let him,” Meg insisted. “Maybe hardcore procrastination’s part of his creative process, don’t you think?”

“Hardcore procrastination. I’ve got to write that one down,” Dean snickered. “He procrastinates so hard he’s going to live forever because he’ll just keep putting off death.”

“You really think he would?” Meg frowned. “I mean, with how much he likes sleeping, you’d think he’d be looking forwards to it.”

Dean laughed hard and shook his head, only to notice Sam was looking at them both with an amused expression in his face.

“What?”

“Nothing,” Sam said. “I’m just thinking Cas’ a really lucky guy.”

Dean stopped laughing, not entirely sure what his brother meant and not entirely sure he wanted to ask. Meg saved face by shrugging and sipping her coffee like there wasn’t anything weird at all with what Sam was insinuating.

“Well, yeah,” she replied. “Have you seen this guy’s ass?”

“Yeah,” Sam said, closing his eyes. “I am not talking about my brother’s ass, thank you.”

“Come on, Sam, there’s no shame in admitting it,” Dean joked. “You got the good hair, but I got the good ass.”

“Oh, look at the time, I’m gonna miss my bus,” Sam said, suddenly in a rush. “Thank you, this has been a lovely weekend…”

“Don’t even try that shit,” Dean scolded him. “We’re driving you.”

And there was no arguing with him.

Meg continued to make jokes about Dean’s ass all the way to the bus station, commenting on how he looked when he was trying to reach a bottle on the top shelf of the bar and letting slip that she knew for a fact that he had a pair of Daisy Dukes shorts somewhere.

“How do you even know that?” Dean complained, and realized that then it was too late to deny it.

“Oh, God,” Sam said, horrified, as Meg burst into laughter in the backseat.

“Hey, it’s a free country!” Dean replied, defensively. “A man needs to be comfortable when he washes his car in the summer, okay? Those shorts are great to avoid a heatstroke.”

“Well, I would love to see you washing your car in them,” Meg commented, teasingly. “If I’m still around next summer.”

“Why wouldn’t you be?” Dean asked.

Instead of answering, Meg came up with another joke about his ass, and it was the last one she had time to make before they parked in the bus station.

“Well, it was great seeing you, bro,” Dean said, hugging Sam. “Let me know how everything turns out with Jess, okay?”

“Sure,” Sam said, with a bitter smile. “You take care of these guys,” he added when he went to hug Meg.

“Yeah, I think the only job more thankless than that is being Cas’ agent,” Meg replied with a grimace. “But I’ll try.”

Sam laughed as they announced his bus on the speakers. He waved at them one more time before boarding, but Meg and Dean didn’t move from their spot until the bus left.

“Damn it, I liked Jess,” Dean commented, and it was like he had been holding on to that thought for the entire weekend.

“Hey, don’t give up just yet,” Meg replied. “I think they could still work it out.”

Dean sighed, unsure. He gave a little jump of surprise when Meg put a hand on his forearm.

“Come on,” she said. “I’ve got time for a cup of coffee before my shift.”

So much caffeine couldn’t be healthier than all the alcohol she drank, but Dean didn’t dare to bring it up. That weekend Meg had actually behaved, not having more than just a couple of beers along with the “Thanksgiving” dinner. For how he’d seen her drink, that was actually a clear decline.

They stopped by a Biggerson’s two blocks from the station and sat by the window, looking outside without saying much while they waited for their orders to show up.

“Do you think we gush about Castiel too much?” Meg asked all of the sudden.

“I thought we were avoiding the topic,” Dean commented.

“We were avoiding it in front of Sam.”

Dean stayed quiet while the waitress left their cups in front of them and waited for Meg to take a sip before he said:

“Well, I’m his boyfriend. I’m entitled to gush about him.”

“Ah,” Meg crooked and eyebrow. “So that’s how it is.”

She was smirking, but Dean didn’t miss the hurt tone in her voice. He breathed in deeply. There was no way around it now.

“Look, you know I like you,” he said. “You’re a good friend, a great drinking buddy. And Cas loves having you around. The three of us, we really have an awesome time together. I can’t deny that.”

“But?” Meg guessed.

“After a certain point, it gets weird,” Dean admitted. “It’s just… Cas and me are Cas and me. You know what I’m saying?”

“Yeah,” Meg replied, with a little shrug. “I get it.”

“It’s not like I’m jealous or something,” Dean continued, with the growing sensation he had put his foot in his mouth and now he was making his best to force it further down. “Like, I’m not going to pretend I understand everything that happened between the two of you, but the thing is, you should have your own life…”

“Dean, I get it,” Meg repeated, with a firmer tone this time. “Three is a crowd.”

“Right.”

He drank his coffee to try to wash the sudden bad taste in his mouth. Meg didn’t look at all offended or embarrassed; she just kept on smirking like Dean had told her a mildly amusing joke.

“Sam gave me some tips to exhort some money from the insurance,” she said, like the previous conversation hadn’t even occurred. “I might make my apartment livable again.”

“You sure you want to stay there?” Dean asked, fully aware of the irony of him asking that after he’d literally just told Meg that she wasn’t as welcome into their relationship or their house as Castiel had tried to make her feel. “I mean, doesn’t it bother you that they never caught the asshole that did it?”

“It bothers the hell out of me,” Meg admitted. “But whatever their quarrel with me was I think it might be out of their system. I don’t think they’ll come back for more, do you?”

Dean’s thoughts flew back to the slashed tire and the keyed door. Maybe this was the time to mention his suspicions. But what if Meg didn’t want to hear him? If he was her, he wouldn’t want to hear it. He wouldn’t even want to be sitting there anymore.

“Yeah, maybe,” he said. “But you know, if you need anything, you can still…”

“I don’t think I’ll be needing anything for the time being,” Meg replied, curtly. “But thank you.”

Dean finished the rest of his coffee, feeling a knot in his stomach. He had gone about this horribly, but now it was too late to take it back and he would have to deal with it.

 

* * *

 

Turned out Sam had been right, and the mere threat of sending a lawyer to them was enough to get the insurance to pay up and shut up. It wasn’t much, but Meg decided she didn’t need a new TV or a new laptop after all, so just buying them second hand on Craiglist helped her save up a couple hundreds of dollars she could use to buy new furniture. So she decided she was gertting some really pretty things this time around. None of that destructible, formica shit, but actual wooden furniture you’d have to set on fire to destroy. She deserved it.

“So I found this nice place downtown,” she told the boys that night during dinner. “Everything is done by hand by this one guy, and they have some awesome Christmas discounts. I’m going there on my next day off, and if I get everything, I could be out of here by the end of the week.”

“Why are you suddenly in a hurry?” Castiel asked, frowning. “I mean, I understand you wanting the discounts, but there’s no need to move back into your apartment so fast. Aren’t you spending Christmas with us?”

Meg took a quick glance at Dean, who shoved an entire meatball into his mouth. So he was clearly not helping her out with it, making it out to be entirely her decision. Well, wasn’t that just peachy of him?

“I’ll have to get back to you on that,” she said. “These holidays are always depressing for me, you know that.”

“All the more reason not to be alone,” Castiel insisted. He tilted his head, the way he did when he was curious or thinking about something. “Is there a problem?”

“No,” Meg lied. “Why would it be? I just really want to go back to my place. It’s what I’ve wanted for months.”

“Yeah, but…”

“Let her be, Cas,” Dean interrupted him. “It’s not like she’s moving out of the state and you’ll never see her again, right?”

Meg was tempted to say ‘ _Not for now’_ , but she bit her tongue. It was something she had been meditating on since she’d talked to Dean. But she didn’t want to say anything until it was a firm decision, and honestly, she was too irritated to make it right now. Hadn’t she gone out of her way to show to Dean she only wanted to be friends with Cas now? Hadn’t she done anything in her power to be as supportive of their relationship as she could? What the hell had he meant with it “getting weird”? If he didn’t want her to be in their lives at all, why didn’t he straight up say so? Well, fuck him and his territorial macho ways. They’d had the exact contrary effect. She was going to stay. She was going to stay and passive-aggressively be the best friend Castiel could ask for.

But she also felt the impulse of not staying where she wasn’t welcome. So she desperately needed to put some distance between her and them.

“Right,” she said, after a pause she hoped wasn’t too long. “I won’t be around as much, but we can always meet up for drinks at Ellen’s bar.”

“Absolutely,” Dean added. “Or you know, watch a movie some time.”

“Totally,” Meg nodded. “You’ll just have to hit me up when you want to see me and I’ll be there.”

Castiel looked at her, unconvinced, and then at Dean. For a second, Meg was certain he was going to ask if something had happened between the two of them and she was ready to deny it when he added:

“Well, I’m coming with you. To see the furniture, I mean.”

“Really?”

“Don’t you have like, a book to finish?” Dean asked at the same time.

“Yes, but I find myself unable to concentrate on it,” Castiel replied. “Sitting day after day in my desk without going out doesn’t actually help at all either. This excursion might be what I need to clear my mind. And of course, it’s always a pleasure to help a friend.”

Dean went quiet, while Meg had to resist the impulse to close her fist in celebration. It was childish and she knew it, but she just felt like she had won something.

“Well, okay,” Dean said after a few seconds of silent eating. “Just tell me what time you’re going…”

“Oh, we wouldn’t want to take up your lunch break at the workshop,” Castiel said. “Don’t worry about it. We can take Meg’s car or the bus.”

“Yeah, Dean,” Meg said, because she couldn’t resist rubbing salt in the wound. “Don’t worry about it.”

Dean picked up the empty dishes and disappeared inside the kitchen without saying a word. When Meg walked in, he was washing them even though it was her turn.

“You want help?” she offered.

“No, I’m fine,” he groaned, without even looking up from the bit of sauce he was trying to scratch.

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

Meg turned around without saying another word. If Dean wanted to give her the cold shoulder, well, she wasn’t going to go around begging him.

 

* * *

 

The place was actually a two-story old house. The first floor had been reformed to double as a shop with an apartment on top where, Meg presumed, the owner lived and had his workshop. Some bells tingled above their head when they opened the door, and their nostrils were immediately invaded by the scent of wood and varnish. Castiel stopped for a second to look around with eyes wide open, like a child that had wondered into a toy shop by happenstance and was slowly realizing the richness that surrounded him.

“These are beautiful,” he commented under his breath. “Meg, look at this wardrobe…”

“Hey, focus,” Meg said, snapping his fingers in front of his face: “Bed, table, chairs. Unless that wardrobe has the secret passage to Narnia, I’m not interested in it.”

“Well, I dunno ‘bout Narnia,” a voice with a southern drawl said behind them. “But it does come with a nice discount.”

They turned around to find a tall man with a beard and a kind smile.

“Hello, Benny Lafitte,” he introduced himself, offering his hand first to Meg and then to Castiel. “You sure I can’t interest you in a wardrobe? This one is particularly firm,” he said, pointing at the one Castiel had been staring at. “And not to brag, but I’m proud of the little roses I carved here.”

“You did this?” Meg asked, unable to hide she was slightly impressed.

“I’ve done most everythin’ ‘round here,” he said. “Whatever you need fin’, you can tell and I’ll gladly point you in the right direction.”

“How much did you say the discount was on this?” Castiel asked. Meg squeezed his arm to get recapture his attention.

“Thank you,” she told Benny. “We’ll just take a look around.”

“A’right,” Benny said. “I’ll be right by the counter if you need me.”

Meg had to drag Castiel away from the wardrobe and its carved roses, but that didn’t help when he was fascinated by every other item in the store.

“Meg, please, look at the work in this frame,” he said when they found a mirror in a corner. “It’s so delicate.”

“Oh, God, it’s like shopping with a kid,” Meg complained. “Why did I agree to bring you along?”

Like that question had flipped a switch in Castiel’s head, he turned around and suddenly his eyes were completely fixed in her. Meg was definitely not expecting that.

“Yes,” he muttered, like he remembered. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask.”

“O… kay,” Meg tried to laugh, but she couldn’t find it in herself when Castiel was suddenly so serious. “Well, spit it out. You’re scaring me with the intense look and everything…”

“Did we make you uncomfortable?” he let out. “Did we do something to make you want to leave?”

Meg had to take a moment to admire Castiel’s strategy. He knew that if she had a problem with him, she could tell him face to face. There was a sort of unspoken code between the two, a strange trust that they could tell each other things they probably couldn’t tell others. But if her problem was with Dean, she couldn’t bring it up to him, simply because their relationship was newer and different. So if she did, she could count with Castiel’s advice and help to solve it.

Not that she was going to straight up admit what Dean had told her. She was tempted to, as she opened her mouth and searched for the words to explain it, but then again… as much as she wanted to get back at Dean, she wasn’t going to stoop down to driving a wedge between him and Castiel.

“No,” she said. “No, of course not. You guys have been nothing short of amazing. I miss having my own space with my own things, that’s all.”

Castiel stared at her like he didn’t quite believe her.

“I thought we were making you feel welcome.”

“You did,” Meg assured him. “But you know… you and Dean are you and Dean and after a point it gets weird with me being there.”

“I never felt weird,” he said, clearly frustrated that he wasn’t seeing what the problem was.

“Me neither,” Meg admitted. “But maybe it should, you know. Three is a crowd.”

Castiel was not convinced with that argument, and he opened his mouth to speak again…

“Have you found something you like?”

Meg quickly turned to Benny Lafitte and offered him what she hoped was her most charming smile.

“Actually, we might need a little guidance,” she told him, taking a step right into his personal space. “Would you be so kind to show us where the tables are?”

Benny raised an eyebrow, but he remained very professional as he guided them to the store and made suggestions, even though Meg kept touching his forearm and smiling at him and making more questions than it was strictly necessary.

“So that’s very firm,” she commented, about the table he was showing them, but she kept her eyes fixed on Benny’s biceps.

“Yes, I try to make every piece so they’ll last,” he answered. “Uh, would you like to sit?”

“I’d love to,” Meg said, moving her eyes down, and then following Benny’s hands. “Oh, you mean on the chair.”

Nobody else laughed, but that didn’t deter her.

If someone had asked her, she couldn’t have said why she suddenly felt the need to flirt with Benny. Except that he was there, and it seemed easy, and later she could laugh with Castiel at the way the carpenter recoiled and tried to avoid her obvious innuendos. Except that Castiel didn’t seem amused, and Benny was not flirting back, and Meg was not having fun.

“You would want to put a pillow on it if it’s too hard for you,” Benny suggested, and immediately closed his eyes like he realized he had just given Meg fruit hanging so low it wasn’t even worth to try and reach for it.

“It’s fine,” Meg said. “Cas, come try this chair out.”

Castiel sighed deeply – he wanted to keep talking to Meg privately, but she was going out of her way to avoid just that – but he obeyed.

“They actually are a little bit hard,” he commented. “Do you have something a little less…?”

“Nope, I like these ones,” Meg interrupted him. “And since I’m the one who will be planting my ass in them on daily basis, I have the final say.”

“Well, that’s a little bit harsh, miss,” Benny intervened. “Perhaps you and your boyfriend could reach an agreement that satisfies you both.”

“Oh, I’m all for mutual satisfaction,” Meg snickered. “Too bad Castiel has his own boyfriend to reach agreements with while I have none.”

“Does he now?” Benny muttered. He looked at Castiel like he was expecting him to confirm that information. Castiel shrugged with resignation. “I see.”

And maybe Meg was imagining it, but she could have sworn Benny started flirting back after that.

“This bed is one of my best works,” he said, showing to her a wide frame. “I’m pretty certain it can withstand time… and also whatever you wish to do on it.”

“I’ll be the judge of that,” Meg replied, with a smirk. “What about futons? I have learned recently the value of having somewhere guests can sleep in.”

“I have some,” Benny nodded. “But hopefully your next guest won’t be putting it to use.”

Meg ended up buying the futon anyway, and agreeing on a day and time for when Benny would be delivering all her new furniture to her apartment.

“I’m looking forwards to move furniture around with you.”

Benny smiled among his beard and bowed his head a little.

“It’ll be my pleasure, miss.”

Castiel gave her a sideway glance as they got into the car again.

“What?”

“You’re unbelievable.”

“Oh, come on,” Meg laughed. “A girl needs some love.”

“‘Move furniture around’? Really?”

He was trying to seem annoyed, but Meg could almost hear the suppressed giggles in his mouth.

“Can’t you just be happy for me?” Meg huffed, turning on the engine.

“I am happy for you,” Castiel said. “As long as you are happy.”

That sounded a lot more serious than it needed to. Meg rolled her eyes at him and turned on the radio.


	19. No One Else's Business

Sadly, Benny had to bring a couple of extra hands to help him lift Meg’s furniture up the stairs. But that didn’t mean he didn’t continue the furious flirting Meg had started back on his shop.

“You’re just moving in?” he asked her, leaning on the kitchen counter with her as his two workers tried (and failed) to fit the bedframe through Meg’s bedroom door.

She found out soon enough what had started as a joke could actually turned into something serious. Benny was definitely not bad to look at, with his carpenter muscles and all, and he seemed like a genuine nice person. Perhaps that was exactly what she needed after… well, whatever the hell it was that had just happened with Dean and Castiel. Not that anything at all really happened. And she needed to stop thinking about it. Now.

“No, I’ve actually been in town for some time,” she replied. “It’s just… there was a little incident and all my old furniture was deemed unusable.”

“I’d say that’s a shame,” Benny replied. “But if it hadn’t happened, our paths might’ve never met.”

“Really?” Meg chuckled. “Is that the best you can do?”

“I’m sorry,” Benny said, beaming like he was aware how cheesy that line had been and was totally expecting Meg’s reaction. “It’s just been a while since I’ve had the attention of such beautiful woman.”

“Okay, that I can accept.”

“Uh, Mr. Lafitte?” one of the workers called from the bedroom’s door. “We’re going to have to dismount it…”

Benny huffed and stood straight to reach within his pocket.

“Give me a second. The tools are in the truck…”

“We can just pick them up,” the other helper offered. “If you’re busy.”

Benny tossed them the keys, with a gesture that clearly meant ‘ _Hell, yeah, I’m busy_ ’. Meg had to laugh at him. The helpers were obviously interested in giving his boss some privacy, so maybe they knew exactly how long Benny meant when he said it had been a while. In any case, it spoke well of his character that his employees wanted him to get laid. You only wish good things on bosses you actually like.

“So what happened to your walls?” Benny kept asking, pointing at the ugly white rectangle Meg had clumsily painted over the insults. “Was that part of the incident too?”

“Sadly,” Meg said. “I always say I’m going to get around painting them, but I never seem to find the time.”

“I could do it for you,” Benny offered. “I hadn’t painted a mural in a while, but it’s gotta be like ridin’ a bike, right?”

“You paint murals?” Meg asked, crooking an eyebrow.

“I learned how to draw and paint so I could make the carvings in the wood,” Benny explained. “I find it soothin’.”

“Well, of course I’d like to have something nicer to look at,” Meg said, throwing Benny an eloquent look. “I might even take you out for dinner as thanks.”

“Shouldn’t that be my line?” Benny asked, laughing.

“If you want it to be your line…”

In the time it took Benny’s employees to finish taking apart the bedframe and putting it back together inside the room, Meg had already agree with their boss he would come Friday after her shift in the hospital to start with the mural. And then they would dinner.

She was actually so happy about it that after they left, she put on her good boots and left despite the cold.

The bar was exactly the same, with the same people drinking in the same places and the same chatter and clattering of glasses. The only difference she could appreciate was that someone – she suspected Dean – had gone through the trouble of hanging Christmas lights around and the coat hanger was a little more crowded than usual.

It had been actually weeks since she walked in there, mainly because her bartender was at home. Or better said, because she had been living at her bartender’s home.

Dean was drying a glass when she arrived. He smiled in the familiar way she knew when he saw her.

“Hey, stranger,” he greeted her.

“Dude, I’ve been gone from your house what? An entire day?” Meg rolled her eyes, but as she sat down in her usual spot, she realized that despite everything, she was actually glad to see Dean. For a couple of seconds, everything was exactly the same as before they actually got to meet each other. “Give me a beer and ask me how my day was, like a good bartender.”

“As you wish,” Dean said. He put a coaster in front of her and opened the bottle. “So how was your day?”

“Awesome,” Meg smirked at him. “I’ve got a date.”

Dean’s smile immediately got unnecessarily rigid.

“Uh… this isn’t like that time with the…?”

“God, no, I’ve learned my lesson,” Meg shook her head. “This guy I’ve actually seen flesh and blood before asking him out for dinner.”

“You asked him out?”

“Why is that a problem?” Meg huffed frustrated because Dean wasn’t reacting the way she expected him to. “It’s the twenty first century. A girl can ask.”

Dean raised his hands, the way he did when he was trying to avoid fighting with Castiel. Meg knew by experience that usually ended with them fighting anyway, and she finally understood why: instead of calming her down, that gesture irritated her even more.

“I’m just saying…”

“You’re not saying anything,” Meg cut him off. “He’s great guy, I’ve got a date, and you, as the friend you claim to be, should be happy for me.”

She went quiet when a couple of heads turned towards her. She hadn’t meant to raise her voice, but really, at this point, Dean was just being a jerk.

“I am happy for you,” Dean stated, looking exactly the opposite of happy. “I am. It’s just… you know I look out for you, right?”

“Nobody asked you to ‘look out’ for me, Dean-o,” Meg replied, hoping she conveyed in the last word just how mad she was at him. “You’re not my boyfriend. In fact, don’t you have one of those who you’re oh, so interested in?”

“Well, yes, yes I do,” Dean replied, finally clenching his jaw the way he did when he was annoyed. “I don’t see how that has anything to do with me worrying about you.”

“It has everything to do,” Meg answered, not caring this time if she was screaming. “Because weren’t you the one who wanted me to have my own life? Well, I went out and got me a life that doesn’t involve either of you.”

“Good for you,” Dean said, and the sarcasm in his voice was so obvious Meg wanted to punch him in the mouth. “Next time you get all your things destroyed because of some asshole you dated, don’t come crying to me about it.”

Meg felt the blood rushing to her head, but instead of dignifying that comment with the answer that really deserved about the place Dean could shove his concerns in, she took out her wallet, slammed ten dollars on the table and stormed out of the bar without saying a word.

 

* * *

 

Castiel emerged from his studio at eight o’clock in the morning. It had been an intense night of work. He had erased an entire paragraph, but after hours of deliberation, he had put it back in with only one sentence out. He was exhausted, but maybe, if Dean wasn’t too tired from his shift at the bar, he could wake him up with a kiss and…

He stopped in his tracks on the kitchen’s door. Dean was in the kitchen, chopping tomatoes. That wasn’t usually part of their breakfast.

“Uh… Dean?”

“I thought I might start dinner early,” Dean said before Castiel could even ask. “We’re having pasta with red sauce, just ‘cause I can’t recall the last time we had that.”

“O… kay,” Castiel tilted his head. “Did you fight with Sam on the phone?”

“Of course not,” Dean replied in a tone that was too forced to be honest. “Why every time you catch me cooking for no reason you assume it’s because I’ve fought with someone?”

Castiel waited.

“Side note, did you know Meg has a date?” Dean added, as he started squashing the tomatoes.

“With whom?” Castiel frowned. “The carpenter?”

“So you knew about this?”

“Well… yes,” Castiel admitted. “They were quite friendly when Meg went to pick up her furniture.”

“Friendly, huh?” Dean repeated through gritted teeth. “Did you get the impression he was friendly with all his female costumers?”

“No, I didn’t get that impression… why does it matter?” Castiel asked, completely confused.

“It doesn’t,” Dean replied quickly. “No, doesn’t matte at all. Why would it? It’s Meg’s life, not ours.”

He turned on the stove like he was imagining how great it would feel to shove someone’s face on it.

“Very well,” Castiel rubbed his eyes. “I’ll just go to bed now.”

“You do that, babe,” Dean replied, throwing the vegetables in the pot with more force than it was necessary. “I’ll be right there.”

Castiel turned around very slowly, thinking maybe he should call Meg later to ask about why Dean was acting so strange, when it suddenly hit him.

“So she told you they’re having a date?”

“Yep,” Dean replied. “She actually stopped by the bar to brag about it.”

“Huh,” Castiel didn’t even stop to think why would that bother Dean and instead jumped right ahead at taking his side in the argument. “You know, his accent seemed a little exaggerated to be completely real.”

“I knew it!” Dean exclaimed, lifting a knife triumphal. “She got defensive because she knew there’s something shady about him!”

“Meg has not been the best judge of character in the past,” Castiel nodded. “Perhaps we should have a closer look at this Benny Lafitte person.”

“Good idea, yes!” Dean agreed, his eyes lightening up with enthusiasm all of the sudden. “I will ask Jody to check if he has any criminal records…”

“Or, perhaps, we could just throw a small Christmas get-together,” Castiel said. “Invite Meg and ask her to bring him along.”

“Yes, that’s a good idea too,” Dean muttered, and Castiel just knew he was already thinking about the way he was going to bribe Jody into giving him the records. “That way we can interrogate him ourselves.”

“Yes… that is exactly what I meant,” Castiel replied. Maybe this wasn’t the best idea after all. “Uh… perhaps that would be a bit too much? They’ve only just started dating so asking Meg if they would come together to a party…”

“But if he doesn’t want to do plans with her three weeks from now, that shows lack of compromise,” Dean argued. “Meg should know that. We’re doing it for her own good.”

Castiel really would have liked to have an argument against that, but Dean really had a point.

Or maybe he convinced himself his boyfriend had a point because he was sleep-deprived and also wanted to know who exactly was trying to date _his_ Meg.

His friend Meg. That was totally what he meant to think.

“Okay,” he said. “I’ll get a pen and paper and we can start planning.”

“I’ll brew some coffee,” Dean replied. He looked around and, for a moment, he looked disconcerted at the mess around him, like he didn’t remember causing it. “Right after I clean all this.”

 

* * *

 

Meg had a lovely Saturday. She had to wok the early morning shift both days, but it was worth to come home around midday and find Benny waiting for her at the building’s door with his brushes, his little stool and his buckets of painting. He started covering the walls in white and Meg might have turned on the heating a little higher than it needed to be just to get him to take off his shirt while he worked.

He didn’t speak much while he was painting, but during breaks to drink some lemonade, he told her about growing up in New Orleans, his favorite painting techniques and his grandmother’s red beans and rice he could absolutely cook for her one day.

“You cook, you can fix things around the house, you draw,” Meg numbered. “Is there anything you can’t do?”

Benny thought about it for a second or two.

“Bear a child,” he said. Meg laughed, but he seemed to be completely serious about it.

He finished a little later than he had calculated, so they went to a nice Italian place not too far from Meg’s place and had great lasagna. Meg couldn’t quite remember what they talked about, but they did laugh a lot.

“Would you like to order some dessert?” Benny asked after a while.

“Okay, but before we do that, I have to ask,” Meg said. “What is your position on same-sex couples?”

“I… don’t have a problem with them?” Benny said, with a frown. “Why would I?”

“You wouldn’t believe what I’ve heard from some people,” Meg shrugged. “Do you think women can’t be the head of the household?”

“Of course they can,” Benny said. “I was raised by a single mother.”

“So you don’t believe we just take lower-paying jobs until we meet a guy and trick him into marriage?”

Benny let out a choked laughter, like he wasn’t entirely sure if Meg was kidding or not.

“That... is totally ridiculous and stupid,” he said, when it became obvious she was actually expecting an answer.

Meg closed her eyes and let out a breath she had been holding on for a long time.

“Was that some sort of test?” Benny asked, still sounding slightly confused.

“Yes,” Meg confessed. “And you passed with flying colors. So that’s a yes on the dessert.”

They split the check and Benny insisted that the waiter took the tip when the poor boy argued it was too high. So that was definitely an improvement.

Also an improvement: Benny didn’t try to grab her hand or put her arms around her when he walked her home. All he did was ask if she was cold and offer her his jacket when she said she was, a little bit.

“Would you think less of me if I told you I’m really tempted to ask you up even though I have to work early tomorrow?” she said when they reached the door of her building.

“No, and I’d be extremely flattered,” Benny answered. “But, regrettably, I’d have to pass. Oh, no, it’s not… I really like you, Meg,” he added, so Meg imagined she didn’t do a great job at hiding her disappointment. “But because I really like you, I’d like to keep courting you a little longer.”

That gave Meg a warm fuzzy feeling inside that immediately froze in horror.

“You’re not a religious nutjob who thinks sex is only for married couples, are you?”

“I’m a recoverin’ Catholic,” Benny chuckled. “I don’t think waiting until marriage for sex is necessary, but I do believe in getting to know the other person a little better.”

Meg sighed in relief again.

“I can work with that,” she said. “Goodnight kiss, at the very least?”

“Yes,” Benny accepted. “I would like that very much.”

Even then he was extremely delicate: he put a hand on the back of her head and pressed her lips to her for only a couple of breaths before breaking apart. One thing was for sure: he definitely knew how to keep her wanting more.

She returned to her apartment with a fluttering heart and a big, stupid smile in her face. She took out her cellphone and she had written half of a text detailing how great her date was when she remembered… she had no one to send it too. She was supposed to still be mad at Dean, and she didn’t think the other couple nurses she talked to at the hospital would appreciate she rubbed it in their faces she was having a good time while they were probably still working.

So Castiel was the only one left. And that was… well, she could tell him, right? Why couldn’t she? They were friends. He’d seen her flirting with Benny. And it was a bit late, but Castiel was a goddamn owl, so she wouldn’t actually wake him up. Yes, Castiel was the ideal person for her to text about her great time.

Except… she wasn’t sure she could.

She sat on the chair (that was a great thing, having chairs again, she couldn’t believe how grateful she was just for that), with her cellphone in front of her like it was some sort of medicine she didn’t want to take.

Why was she being so stupid? Castiel wasn’t patronizing like Dean. He wouldn’t shove her past mistakes in her face or say hurtful things. He wouldn’t go off at her for dating, like a goddamn grown woman, and he sure as hell wouldn’t make her feel it was her fault for not taking care of herself properly if things didn’t turn out like she expected with Benny. She knew he wouldn’t, and if she explained to him why he was telling him and not Dean, well, then Winchester would have to deal with Castiel’s fury at him for being at idiot. Which he deserved.

She was thinking all that while she wrote the text, but she couldn’t bring herself to hit the send button.

Castiel wouldn’t judge her. Castiel wouldn’t be mad at her. He would be happy for her. He would encourage her to do whatever and whoever she wanted, as long as she was happy.

And knowing that hurt more than if he had been an asshole like Dean. Because that meant he was so thoroughly over her, so thoroughly over their relationship, that he could see her as nothing but a friend and he could be completely happy with someone else whether she was there or not.

And there she was, hanging onto sixteen years old feelings that were going nowhere, hoping against all hope that Castiel didn’t also think it was weird and awkward that she still wanted to be part of his life.

That was why she hadn’t left town when she should have. And that was why Dean had asked her to leave: because he had totally seen through her charade. Maybe he never had been fooled by it in the first place, and honestly, she couldn’t hold asking her to leave against him.

She sank her face in her arms. God, she was such a mess.

Okay, maybe that didn’t have to be a bad thing. Maybe moving on from those feelings meant pretending she had moved on from them. Fake it ‘til you make it, right? Maybe if she really acted like Castiel’s friend, maybe if she continued to date good guys like Benny, she would, eventually, one day, wake up and find out she no longer missed the dorky boy with blue eyes she had loved for so long. And if she never did, well, that was no one else’s business but hers.

But first, she had to at least give it a try. And friends told each other about successful dates. So she added a ‘Talk to u tomorrow’ and a smiley face at the end of her message.

There. It was sent.

She didn’t stick around to see if Castiel had read it or if he answered. She walked straight for the fridge, gulped down a can of beer without even closing the door and went to bed without wiping off her make-up.


	20. The More, The Merrier

Sunday afternoon was a repeat of Saturday’s. Meg got to sit around and watch Benny work on her walls. He started by making sure the paint was dry before he started carefully drawing an intricate rose pattern over them. Why roses? Well, he thought flowers looked pretty, but Meg didn’t like flowery things, but roses were elegant, though. They had a lengthy discussion about it before Benny set to work, promising her up and down that it wouldn’t look too corny at all.

“Trust me, by the end of it, it’ll be a delight to look at.”

“Well, of course you would say that,” Meg rolled her eyes. “You have to both impress me and get me to pay you for your job.”

“I thought I had already impressed you by getting all the answers of your test right,” he said, with a wink.

Meg’s phone chimed while she huffed at him.

“Don’t get cocky,” she warned him, before looking at the screen.

It was a text from Cas. It simply said: _‘I’m downstairs_ ’.

Meg’s brain immediately went into overdrive. Why was he downstairs? Was it because she had promised to talk to him and she hadn’t? Had he come all the way there just to tell her sending text at that hour wasn’t right? Why was she being ridiculous at panicking like that?

Another text lit up his screen: ‘ _Never mind, Suzie opened for me._ ’

Oh, so he was coming up now. That really did not help at all.

“So… my friend is coming,” she told Benny. “That… doesn’t bother you, right?”

“Of course not,” he said, without taking his eyes off the line he was tracing on the wall. “It’s your home.”

Meg was about to protest: “Yeah, but…” when there were two curt knocks on the door.

So now there was no escaping it.

Castiel’s nose was red from the cold and there were bags under his eyes, but he was smiling kindly as usual. He had a platter covered with a cloth he put on Meg’s hand without explaining what it was before grabbing her shoulders and kissing her on the cheek.

“How are you?” he asked, like that was how he always greeted her.

“Have you been drinking?” Meg asked, frowning. Because that was the only explanation she could think of for that overtly cheerful and friendly behavior.

“No, of course not,” he said. He stepped inside and stopped by the coat hanger. “I’m just happy to see you, that’s all.”

“I’ve been gone for less than a week,” Meg pointed out.

“Have you? Well, it feels a little longer than that.” Castiel answered as he took his clothes off: his coat, his scarf, his gloves. So clearly this wasn’t meant to be a short visit. “Woah, it’s really hot in here.”

“Did you finish your book?” Meg asked. Castiel chuckled and shook his head. “Did you smoke something?”

“Can’t I just be happy to see my friend?” Castiel shrugged.

Before Meg could say something along the lines ‘You can’t possibly be this happy’, he turned around and stared directly at Benny’s naked back.

“Hello,” he said, a little louder than he had to: Benny was right there and the apartment wasn’t that big.

“Oh, hello again,” Benny turned his head and looked at him from atop of his stool. “Uh… Castiel, was it?”

“Yes, I’m glad you remember me,” Castiel added. His smile was a little tense, and Meg had the impression he was forcing those words out.

“’Course I remember you, brotha’,” Benny replied, unaware of or politely ignoring the awkwardness. “Meg speaks highly of you.”

Meg avoided Castiel’s gaze by removing the cloth from the platter.

“Cookies?” she crooked an eyebrow. “Really?”

Because not only were they cookies: they were cookies shaped like Christmas trees and Santa’s face. And they weren’t bought and put on the platter for display either, oh, no. Someone had actually gone through the trouble of baking and decorating them, and Meg would have bet her shiny new furniture it hadn’t been Castiel.

“Does Dean know you’re here?” Meg asked, squinting at him.

“Yes. In fact, he insisted I should bring something over when I visited you,” Castiel said, with a completely oblivious smile. “He was kind enough to make these just for you.”

Meg stared at the cookies again, suddenly wondering if they would be safe to eat. But then again, poisoning someone’s food because she was mad at them would be something she would do. Dean would get revenge in a little subtler way.

While she was reflecting on the pros and cons of trying those cookies, Castiel turned his attention back to Benny.

“So… roses, huh?” he asked. “Did you pick that design or did Meg?”

“We agreed on it,” Benny replied. “I do think it’s the flower that fits her the most.”

“Oh, yes,” Castiel nodded. “I always did say Meg had a thorny beauty about her.”

Benny looked over his shoulder with understandable confusion: that was not the kind of thing a gay man (which he clearly thought Castiel was) said about their female friend, and Meg really wasn’t in the mood for detailed explanations.

“I’m going to make coffee,” she decided.

“Good idea,” Castiel said. “Why don’t you come down and have a cup with us, Benny? I really would like to have a chance to talk to you.”

Benny looked at Meg like he was expecting her to give him permission for it, but since that was too ridiculous, he ended up shrugging and putting his brush down.

“I could use a break.”

It took five minutes and sixteen seconds for the coffee to be ready. Meg knew because she stared at the coffee maker that entire time, half-hoping it would explode and kill her before she had to go out and actually talk to the two people sitting in her living room. Because the two of them weren’t exactly doing that: she could see them from the counter, sitting one in front of the other, without saying a single word. Benny was idly picking cookies, breaking them and putting the smaller pieces in his mouth. Castiel glared at him in that intense way he knew, like the fact Benny was eating cookies in front of him was a capital offense.

And she had no idea what was going on or why Castiel had spontaneously decided to visit, but she suspected she was not going to like when she found out the reason.

“So, Benny,” Castiel said when Meg appeared with a platter full of cups. His tone was excessively friendly, and like he hadn’t just started talking but was continuing a very interesting topic to him: “When did you move to lovely Sioux Falls?”

“Couple of years,” Benny replied, shrugging. “When my tour ended, my ex-wife and I decided to settle somewhere nice, and she had family in the area, so we came here.”

“Your ex-wife?” Castiel repeated, crooking an eyebrow like that was the most incriminating thing Benny could have revealed about himself. “So you were married?”

“Yeah,” Benny said. “But like I told Meg last night, Andrea found himself a guy richer and younger than me and served me the papers.”

“Oh,” Castiel said, and took a sip from his cup. “Must have been tough.”

“Yeah, it was. But ya know, ya gotta learn how to live through these things.”

Meg had the impression Benny was exaggerating his drawl just to annoy Castiel, and it was working, because all he could add was:

“And you certainly did.”

Then he continued to drink his coffee through pursed lips like some sort of strict aunt who was being denied the pleasure of humiliating her niece. He was clearly frustrated he didn’t get to reveal that part of Benny’s past to Meg. Meanwhile, she was still trying to figure out what the hell was his problem and why was he there.

“Great cookies,” Benny said. The platter was half-empty now, and it had been because of him: Meg and Castiel hadn’t even touched them. “Your boy must be a great cook.”

“He is,” Castiel said, and amazingly, he didn’t start bragging about Dean like Meg had come to expect he would: “In fact, if you’d like to try more of his cooking, we’re throwing a small party for Christmas. You could come with Meg… unless you have other plans of course.”

Meg was so stunned that she completely missed what Benny said. There it was: the kindness, the cookies, it was all a trap to get her to go to their stupid party. She felt the blood rushing to her brain. If Dean thought she was going to forgive him so easily, oh, was sorely mistaken.

“Meg?”

“Uh, sorry,” she came back to reality, shaking her head. “That’s very nice of you to invite us, but I can’t go. I already took Thanksgiving off,” she continued explaining while Castiel’s confident smile began to slowly vanish. “So I have to work both on Christmas and New Year.”

“But… you can surely come after your shift is over,” Castiel argued.

“I’ve got two shifts back to back,” she replied. “I’m working really late; probably won’t be out before the party’s over. Sucks, but that’s the deal I had to make so I didn’t have to work on Thanksgiving weekend.”

“Oh,” Castiel muttered. He looked slightly disappointed. “Yes, of course. I understand.”

“Benny can still go, though,” Meg offered, fully aware she was putting Castiel into a very awkward situation, but she didn’t care. He had started it. “I mean, if you don’t have other plans,” she added, turning to him and stretching her hand over the table to ostensibly touch his.

“Well, I don’t think it’d be as fun without you there, suga’,” Benny replied. “But if they insist, it ain’t like I got something better to do.”

Castiel clenched his jaw for a moment, fully aware that he couldn’t say no to Benny without coming off as a rude asshole.

“Of course we would love to have you,” he lied. “The more, the merrier.”

“I’m glad,” Meg smirked. “Welp, it’s getting late, and I don’t want you to drive in the dark. Who knows when a freaky snowstorm might hit the town and strand you somewhere.”

Castiel tried to laugh, but it was a bit complicated when Meg was basically tossing his clothes at him and dragging him to the door.

“Good to see you again, brotha’,” Benny waved his hand at him.

“Yeah, you…” Castiel tried to say, but Meg slammed the door shut after them before he could. “… too.”

Meg led the way downstairs without waiting for him, which meant Castiel had to catch her practically at the door, gasping for air and trying to put his gloves on at the same time.

“Well, have a nice week,” Meg said, opening the door and letting a gust of wind hit Castiel square in the chest. “I’ll see you whenever.”

“Uh… I’m… sorry?” Castiel asked. Meg simply raised an eyebrow, as if to say: ‘You heard me right’. “Meg, are you mad at me for reason?” he asked, finally receiving the memo.

“Well, I wasn’t until half an hour ago,” she clarified. “But then you had to go and lend yourself to be part of Dean’s machinations.”

“Machinations? What?” Castiel shook his head, and he seemed genuinely confused, but Meg wasn’t buying it. “Meg, the party was my idea.”

“Sure it was,” she rolled her eyes. “And it was also your idea to show up here with cookies and be just so damned nice, wasn’t it?”

“You’re mad at me for being nice?” Castiel asked, like he was trying to confirm some particularly hard to believe information.

“I’m mad at you for pretending to be nice to snoop into my life,” Meg lashed out. “Geez, you’re just as bad as Dean.”

Castiel blinked a couple of times, like he was trying to process that.

“Did… something happen between you guys?” he asked. “Did you fight or…?”

“Well, and here I thought you two were so close and told each other everything,” Meg said, sarcastic. “You wanna know? Ask him. He knows what he did.”

She had to resist the urge to push Castiel to the door, because that had been extremely childish and impractical. So she crossed her arms and looked away, hoping that he would get the message he was being dismissed.

Castiel took a hesitant step towards the door.

“Uh… I forgot the platter…”

“I’ll tell Benny to bring it to you. You know, when he goes to your so-called party.”

Castiel opened his mouth, like he wanted to defend himself or add something else, but in the end, he seemed to realize Meg was too pissed to hear it. He turned around to leave and Meg was about to close the door when he returned, putting a foot in the frame to prevent her from closing the door completely. He fixed his eyes on Meg’s face, the way he did so people wouldn’t have a choice but to look right back at him.

“I don’t know what’s going on here,” he admitted. “I don’t know why you’re mad. But I just hope you know you are my friend, and I care deeply about you. Above everything, I want you to be happy and safe. I’m sure Dean would tell you the same thing.”

Dammit, he was doing so well, and he had to go and ruin it like that.

“Are you done?”

“Yes, I’m done,” Castiel sighed, taking his foot of the frame. “Goodbye, Meg.”

Meg didn’t even bother to answer before closing the door. She went back to the stairs, but at the last second she was weak and turned to see if Castiel was still standing there, if he still had something to say to make everything a little bit better than it was right now.  
He obviously didn’t. She caught a glimpse of his back as he slid inside his car and watched him drive away.

 

* * *

  
“Well, that was unexpected,” Benny laughed from his stool when Meg returned to the apartment.

“I am so sorry about that,” she said, cringing. “I don’t even know what he was trying to accomplish here.”

“Why, wasn’t he trying to seize me up?” Benny asked. “I thought it was pretty clear.”

Meg huffed, because yes, that was obviously what was going on there with the invitation and the unnecessary kindness. It just bothered her to no end, because after she had been told in no uncertain terms to get out of their business, she still had to endure those two getting all up in hers.

Though, to be fair with Cas, maybe that had been just Dean’s insecurity talking, and Castiel really did want her to still be around. But if Dean really wanted to hold her at arm’s length, then why go the extra mile to try and find who exactly was the guy she had just began dating? Or maybe it really was Castiel looking out for her, like friends – she was going to vomit the next time someone brought up that word – did?

This triangular communication thing really wasn’t working, but Meg was simply too annoyed to try the direct route.

“You got some great friends there looking out for you,” Benny commented, and Meg had to suppress a gag.

“I guess.”

She sat down on the table, in front of what was left of the Christmas cookies. She picked up a tree and bit off the star from the top while staring at the back of Benny’s neck. He had been completely honest about his ex-wife, maybe he deserved the same honesty back.

“We used to date,” she let out. “Back in high school.”

“Have you been friends that long?”

“No, we lost contact for a while,” Meg admitted. “I just happened to meet him again and his boyfriend by chance. We all three hang out together sometimes.”

It was a little longer than that, at least in Meg’s mind, but she thought it was a good summary of the situation.

Benny didn’t say anything, perhaps because he didn’t have anything to say or maybe because he was too concentrated tracing the outline of the rose on the wall with his pencil. Meg found out the way he held the tip of his tongue between his lips was actually quite adorable. In the end, he stepped back a little to look at his work and nodded to himself.

“Just so you know, I don’t hold it him against him,” he said, finally turning to look at Meg. “Trying to figure exactly what I’m ‘bout, I mean. Forgive me if it’s none of my business, but you don’t seem to have a lot of people ‘round these parts. I get it, because after Andrea left I was the same. He’s just trying to make sure you’re not alone.”

“I am alone,” Meg replied. “I have been for a while.”

She didn’t mean it as bleak as it came out, but it must have sounded depressing enough that Benny stepped down from his stool and walked to her to put a hand on her shoulder.

“Well, maybe I can change that, if you let me,” he said, with a little wink.

Meg grinned back at him… but only until she realized her cookie had disappeared.

“Oh, come on!” she complained as Benny took a bite of it.

“I’m sorry, they’re just too good!” Benny apologized, but that didn’t prevent Meg from jumping at him, trying to wrestle the cookie away from him.

Somehow, they ended up on the futon (Meg was never so happy she bought it), with Meg straddling Benny’s lap and holding his wrists above his head. Benny still had the cookie trapped between his lips, but before he could pull it all into his mouth, Meg managed to bite a little bit off it, barely grazing Benny’s lips in the process.

“You are relentless, woman,” Benny said, looking at her with frustration.

Meg just laughed, thinking she felt a little less lonely already.


	21. Roots

“I have no idea what she meant, Cas, sorry.”

Dean was in the bathroom when Castiel asked the question, standing in front of the sink and doing that thing in which he pretended to be too busy to answer Castiel’s questions or that he straight up didn’t understand when Castiel was talking about. And Castiel knew he was doing it, and he knew Dean knew Castiel knew he was doing it. Castiel understood that some topics were harsher to discuss than others to Dean, and that his natural reaction to anything that bothered him was avoidance and denial. Castiel had learned, with time, that coaxing Dean out of his shell required a lot of understanding and love.

He just didn’t have the patience for those things that day.

“Dean, please, think about it,” he asked, sitting at the edge of the bed and looking at Dean’s back, hoping that if he did it intensely enough, his boyfriend wouldn’t have more option than to glance back at him and give him an honest answer. So far, Dean was showing incredible restraint. “Is there anything you said, anything you could have done that might have upset Meg?”

“Couldn’t say,” Dean shrugged, smearing more toothpaste in his brush that it was strictly necessary. “You know how she is, all Miss Independent, Miss Nothing Ever Touches Me, or At Least I Pretend So and Then I Go Off at Others For The Slightest Provocation.”

Castiel crooked an eyebrow. There it was.

“So you did fight?”

“It wasn’t so much a fight as Meg using me as a punching bag for her own frustrations,” Dean replied. “I mean, is it really my fault that some guy broke into her apartment just months ago and that I think she should be a little bit more careful with the whole dating thing for a while?”

He shoved the brush into his much to punctuate his words, almost to signal he had nothing to add about the business.

Now that it’d have been a day and Castiel had actually slept and ate well, he was starting to put two and two together. The reason he had been cooking that morning after his shift, the reason he had insisted on throwing the party and absolutely at any cost, having Benny in it. He was dead set in finding out as much as he could about him and well, Castiel couldn’t say his worries were valid (it had been months without any other sign of the perpetrator showing up, so maybe Dean still holding onto it was a bit of an overreaction), but they were without a doubt well-meaning. But he also could completely see how Meg would take that as an invasion to her privacy.

And he had been an unwitting pawn in Dean and Meg’s quarrel, which he didn’t like at all.

“You could have warned me before you slapped a platter of cookies in my hands and sent me there,” Castiel huffed. Dean spat and made gargles with the mouthwash, and Castiel had the impression he was trying to gain time to find something to answer. “You could at least have the decency to tell me Meg wasn’t going to take it well that we invited Benny…”

Dean spat the mouthwash.

“Why? It’s not like she would have slammed the door on your face,” he groaned.

“That was because I caught her off guard,” Castiel said, frustrated. Dean’s evasive tactics were so on point the army should’ve hired him. “In any case, it was inappropriate to ask her to bring Benny along when they had been dating for so little time. I don’t know how you talked me into it…”

“Hey, I have talked you into a lot of things in the past,” Dean admitted, pointing a finger at him. “But this wasn’t one of those. I wanted to just make a background check; you suggested the whole Christmas party business.”

Castiel raised a finger, but he realized he had nothing to say to that. In a demonstration of unusual interest for his mouth hygiene, Dean actually flossed. Castiel suspected it was because he didn’t want that conversation to go on. However, he still had something to analyze:

“Are we… maybe too interested in Meg’s love life?” he asked out loud.

Because this wasn’t a new thing. He remembered nearly panicking during Thanksgiving that she might hook up with Sam and leave them for California. Why? That wasn’t how normal friends reacted. That was how jealous, obsessive ex-boyfriends reacted, and he definitely wasn’t that.

Dean finished flossing.

“No,” he said, with a shrug. “Not at all. That’s crazy, Cas. We give it the perfect amount of interest it deserves.”

As a rule of thumb, Castiel assumed than whenever Dean dismissed or denied something related to emotional issues, that meant the reality was exactly the opposite of what he said.

“Oh, God, we are,” he said, in horror. “I’m a jealous, obsessive ex-boyfriend.”

“What?” Dean frowned. “No, you’re not. Come on.”

“Well, the way I’ve been acting I might as well be,” Castiel pointed out. “Dean, we’ve been total assholes about this whole thing. We have to apologize to Meg.”

“Now?” Dean asked, but Castiel was already looking for his phone and locating Meg’s name. “Cas, it’s two thirty in the morning. We’re night owls, but Meg has the early shift tomorrow…”

It was too late. Castiel had already called her.

“It’s ringing,” he informed Dean.

“Hang up now and tell her you butt-dialed her if she asks,” Dean rolled his eyes.

But again, too late: Meg groaned at the other end of the line:

“Unless someone is dead or dying, I don’t want to hear it!”

“Uh… hi, Meg,” Castiel greeted, cringing and realizing Meg probably wouldn’t be very receptive to his apologies right then.

“What the fuck, Clarence?!”

The fact she called him by his old nickname meant she was actually half-asleep, and therefore wouldn’t even hear a word of what he had to say.

“Nothing,” he said. Dean slapped his own forehead with an open palm. “I’m sorry, I butt-dialed you. This call is pointless.”

He put the cellphone aside, feeling like someone had set fire to his entire face. Dean was now looking at him with a mixture of disappointment and second-hand embarrassment.

“God, you can’t lie to save your life.”

“Shut up,” Castiel groaned. “Now she’s probably even madder at us and we have no way to solve it.”

Dean sat by his side on the bed, and of course he started rationalizing their behavior, even though if they both decided to act like adults, they would have realized there was no way to actually do that.

“Well, we can’t uninvite Benny,” Dean said. “It’d be rude.”

“Is it really that important what he thinks of us?”

“Hell yeah,” Dean nodded with energy. “We want him to like us, in case he ends up having a long term thing with Meg.”

“Huh,” Castiel said, like he had been so busy with the problem right in front of him he hadn’t even considered that possibility. “I guess if he’s going to be a permanent fixture on Meg’s life, that means we’ll be seeing a lot of him as well.

“Exactly,” Dean nodded. “And to be honest with you, I want to take a look at him before that.”

Castiel hated that he couldn’t answer anything to that, so he changed the topic:

“How did you know she has the early shift tomorrow?”

“Dude, she lived with us for three months,” Dean pointed out. “And you never noticed she left early on Mondays and Thursdays?”

Castiel did recall Meg knocking on his studio’s door at an early hour before she left for work to playfully remind him sleep was a thing, but he wouldn’t have been able to say which days of the week it was.

Suddenly, another thing hit him:

“Is Christmas on a Thursday?”

“This year it is,” Dean said, before adding in a mocking tone: “Very good, sweetie. Next you just need to learn the months of the year.”

Castiel glared at him and then looked away.

“Oh, come on, babe, I’m just teasing you,” Dean said, putting a hand on Castiel’s neck to get him to look at him again. “Look, Meg’s beef is with me. If you want me, I’ll apologize to her.”

“You shouldn’t apologize to her because I want you to,” Castiel said.

“Cas, don’t be naïve,” Dean said. “The whole reason I’m even nice to Meg it’s because you want me to.”

“Oh.”

Castiel’s disappointment must have shown in his face, because Dean quickly added:

“I mean, Meg and I got along before we found out how we both had a relationship with you. But I don’t think we’ve ever had become best friends or friends at all if it hadn’t been for you.”

Castiel didn’t say anything. He just stared at his feet for a couple of seconds.

“Okay, I’ll bite,” Dean huffed. “Why does that bother you?”

“It doesn’t… bother me,” Castiel said. “I just… misjudged a situation, that’s all.”

Dean looked at him with a frown, the way he did when Castiel said something completely unrelated to the conversation they were having and he had to figure out where had that come from.

“It doesn’t matter,” Castiel assured him. “The bottom line is Meg appreciates her independence over people’s love for her, you tend to worry too much even when nobody asks you to and I come off as aloof or oblivious in most situations, when I’m neither. We are all victims of our defects.”

Dean tilted his head, not entirely sure what Castiel was talking about.

“So… I take it you want me to apologize Meg?”

“I want you to do exactly what you want to do, Dean Winchester,” Castiel said, smiling at him. “It’s what I always want for you.”

“Good,” Dean said. “Because what I want to do is check out this guy up close and personal and let him know Meg’s got back-up whether she wants it or not.”

And that had been exactly what Castiel meant, but he didn’t bother to point it out to Dean. Instead, he spent the rest of his time awake feeling slightly guilty for having forced Meg to lie about her work to avoid going to their party.

 

* * *

  
In reality, Meg hadn’t so much lied as told a half truth. She did have a double shift on Christmas, but it was morning and afternoon. She was free that night, but Castiel couldn’t have paid her to go stand in a room full of people feigning courtesy and eating way more than it was good for her health. First, because she was going to be too exhausted to pretend to be nice, and second, because she was still mad at Dean. And after Castiel interrupting her sleep the night before, she was more than a little irritated at him too. So hell yeah, she was just going to send Benny alone in to rub it in their faces she had got herself a good guy this time around.

No, it didn’t particularly mattered to her Missouri thought that was insane.

“Your boy doesn’t know your… other two boys at all,” she pointed out. “What the hell are they even going to talk about?”

Meg huffed, really not in the mood to be scolded like that during her lunch break. Especially when she hadn’t had time to have breakfast because she overslept, because someone woke her up randomly in the middle of the night. Next time she saw Castiel, she was going to give him the coldest of shoulders.

“Fuck if I know,” Meg sighed. “Whatever is it that men talk about.”

“What if they don’t get along?”

“They deal with it like fucking adults,” Meg replied. She was quickly approaching her record of swear words said in under ten minutes, but it wasn’t exactly like she cared. “I’m not their mom or their fucking nanny.”

Missouri realized she was not approaching the subject in a way that was going to convince Meg to change her mind, so she tried a different tactic.

“You know, I have a niece, Tracy,” she told her. “Sweetest girl in the world, I can guarantee, but so damn changeable. Her daddy and her mom, my cousin, they passed when she was a teen. She finished school and then it was like she had no direction to follow, so she bounced around a lot, even though me and her other uncles and aunties wanted her to go to college and get a good life.”

“Oh, boy,” Meg sighed, presenting the beginning of one of Missouri’s parables. “I get it, she was like me; she didn’t have anybody, her life was a mess. Get to the point.”

“One day, one of her cousins gave her a kitten,” Missouri continued, relentless in the face of Meg’s irritation. “And that changed her completely. She got herself a fixed job, she started going to community college; she even found an apartment. All because she wanted to have money to feed that damn thing and put sand in its litter box.”

“I’m sorry, I thought you were against me becoming a crazy cat lady?”

“The point is that cat changed her life because it gave her something she didn’t have since her parents died,” Missouri said. “It gave her roots. Something to hold her to the ground, to help her get herself together.”

“I got myself together on my own just fine,” Meg protested. “Mostly.”

“That was because you got tired of not having roots,” Missouri pointed out. “Why else did you come back to Sioux Falls after so many years? Because something about this place grounded you.”

Meg huffed again and looked away. She wanted to say that was ridiculous and that Missouri should stop assuming things about her, but she couldn’t lie to the other woman when she had that teacher-who-caught-her-student-misbehaving look in her eyes.

“And you found it again,” Missouri continued.

“Not exactly,” Meg admitted under her breath.

“Things are never exactly the way we picture them,” Missouri replied. “What I’m trying to say is that you found someone to keep you here, and it wasn’t your carpenter boy in the first place. Don’t push them away.”

“I’m not pushing them away,” Meg said, bitterly. “It’s sort of the other way around, actually. They don’t want me to be so close to them, so I took a step backwards. And when I did, they flipped. I just wish they had the courtesy to make up their damn minds.”

She was talking about Dean, specifically, but that was too long an explanation she didn’t feel like giving. Missouri just shot her another knowing look and shrugged, like she had done anything in her power already.

“Do what you feel you must,” she said. “But don’t lose sight of what’s important because of your anger.”

The alarm of Meg’s phone went off, announcing the end of their lunch break.

 

* * *

 

Christmas Day was rapidly approaching, and during that entire week, Dean didn’t stop for even a second to think about the things Castiel had said. Not because he didn’t want to think about them, it wasn’t that, not at all. He always respected Cas’ opinion on things because he had a different outlook on life and he was his partner and whatnot. No, he didn’t think about it because getting a party up and running was just so much work: he had to put together a list of guests who didn’t have to go over at relatives’ places (Hael would be in town, but the rest of Castiel’s family was out of the state visiting other relatives, thank the gods), make sure there was food and drink, and then some in case someone showed up with an unexpected plus one.

Not because of Meg. He wasn’t at all expecting Meg to change her mind last minute and show up with Benny. No, sir, it wasn’t that.

And then there were thousands of other little things he hadn’t even considered like what kind of music he should play? Should he organize games? Maybe call everybody in advance and warn them they were doing a secret Santa or something of the sorts? The only parties he had gone to back in college involved a lot loud music, alcohol and people sneaking into empty rooms for sex. He had the impression that now he was in his thirties, parties should be at least a little different.

And on top of it all, Castiel wasn’t being much helpful.

“Did you really have to invite Rachel?” he asked, moving papers in his desk with a mildly panicked expression in his face.

“She’s your agent,” Dean replied form the studio doorway. “You said she just got divorced. I thought it’d be a nice detail.”

“Yes, but she’s going to ask how the second draft is going,” Castiel replied. He grabbed a pen and started crossing words in the paper in front of him. He looked a bit like a middle schooler doing his homework hurriedly and not particularly caring if the answers were right just to show he had done it.

“That’s only a problem if you don’t have a second draft,” Dean pointed out. Castiel looked at him with a crooked eyebrow and Dean understood. “Uh, okay. I’ll leave you to work then.”

“Thank you,” Castiel sighed, and proceeded to act like Dean wasn’t there at all. Honestly, he needed to stop procrastinating so epically, but Dean didn’t have time to get all preachy on him.

So Dean was alone against the party preparations that, he couldn’t stress it enough, had been Castiel’s idea in the first place. As the week went on, he found himself increasingly on edge and annoyed by the most basic things, like costumers refusing to use coasters on the bar or people arguing the price of their tire change at the workshop. He wasn’t entirely sure if it was him or if people where just working extra hard to trample all over his nerves, but he definitely didn’t have the patience to put up with it.

“For the last time, lady, we do not have those spare parts your car needs!” he went off at a woman in the workshop the day before Christmas. “We need two weeks to get it, as I told you two weeks ago when you decided they were too expensive for you and didn’t order them.”

The woman stared at him open-mouthed and dumbstruck.

“I demand to speak with your boss, right now!” she shouted. “I’ll have your job for this! You’re ruining my family’s Christmas!”

“You did that to yourself,” Dean replied. “If you so desperately needed to get your car fixed by tomorrow, then you should have come a lot earlier. Don’t blame me for being a lazy cheapskate!”

“Dean!” Bobby called him and before the woman could scream at him again, he put a hand on Dean’s shoulder. “Go take a break in the back.”

“But I’m…”

Bobby lowered his head in that glare of death that usually meant someone was about to get their ass handed to them.

“I said, go take a break.”

Dean debated staying there and explaining to him that it was that lady who was being irrational, not him, but it wasn’t worth fighting with Bobby. So he grabbed his jacket on the way out, but growling loud enough to let Bobby know he really wasn’t the one who needed to take a break.

After the Thanksgiving storm, it hadn’t really snowed all that much. That day the pavement wasn’t even wet, despite the grey clouds that made the sky looked like a light grey void over his head and the freezing breeze. Dean zipped his jacket up and hid his hands in his pockets, cursing himself for not taking out his gloves too, and that lady for being so irrational, and Castiel for not helping with the party, and Meg for being so stubborn and irrational and…

The door opened and Bobby came out without his jacket, like at his age he didn’t even feel the cold anymore.

“What’s up with you, boy?” he asked, with the same glare as before. “You usually don’t go off at clients like that, no matter how stupid they are.”

Dean took a little consolation on Bobby recognizing it wasn’t him who had been in the wrong.

“I’m sorry, I just…”

“It was a rhetorical question, I don’t really care what’s up with you,” Bobby interrupted him. “You’re going to treat the clients like they’re damn royalty even if they’re demanding you put squared tires in their cars, you hear me?”

“Loud and clear,” Dean answered through gritted teeth.

Bobby nodded, glad that he understood it, and then leaned on the wall next to him.

“Now, for real, what is up with you?” he asked, going from severe boss to substitute father like it was no effort. Dean figured other people would get whiplash from the change, but he was used to it. “Did you fight with Cas or something?”

“Why would you even think that?”

“Well, you’re acting like you act when there’s trouble in paradise,” Bobby shrugged. “Forgive me for assuming.”

“No,” Dean shook his head. “It’s not that all. I’m just… tired and out of holiday spirit.”

“Happens to us all,” Bobby said. He knew there was no point in keep on pressing the issue, so he pat Dean in the back and told him to go work on some cars. “You’re done dealing with people today.”

“Thank you,” Dean sighed, relieved.

Bobby opened the door to go back inside.

“Oh, and Jody told me about your party,” he added, in a sarcastic tone that indicated he completely blamed Dean for not inviting him. “I’m looking forward to it.”

Dean grimaced. Right. Now he had to revise his list to make sure he hadn’t forgotten anyone else. This thing was going to kill him.

 


	22. Holiday Spirit

His boyfriend seemed to have mastered the art of cloning, or at least it seemed that way to Castiel. On Christmas, Dean seemed to be all over the house, fixing decorations, tasting the eggnog and the punch (Castiel didn’t even know they had a punch bowl), and counting the chairs over and over to make sure there were enough of them for everyone.

“Okay,” he said lifting his hands and looking around. “I think we’re ready.”

“Need I say that you shouldn’t worry too much about this and that everyone’s probably going to love this party?”

He turned towards Castiel with a grin that froze in the middle of his face.

“You’re not wearing that,” he said.

Castiel looked down, not exactly sure what was wrong with his clothes. He was wearing brown pants, black shoes and a green sweater with Santa’s face plastered on it, with the words ‘ _I BELIEVE’_ underneath it.

“Cas, take it off,” Dean insisted, when he saw his boyfriend hesitating.

“A tempting offer, but our guests will be here at any moment,” Castiel pointed out.

“Go put on a normal shirt!”

“Why?” Castiel tilted his head. “Is it not festive enough?”

“It’s too festive,” Dean replied. “That’s the problem.”

“Ugly Christmas sweaters are a funny, Dean,” Castiel said. “This is our first house party, and you’ve made everything look like this is some sort of fancy event. I thought it would take some of the seriousness away and help everyone relax.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Dean said. “This is completely informal.”

He was wearing a white shirt, jeans without any holes in them and Castiel was certain he had put on some of his cologne on top of parting his hair differently. He looked overtly groomed for people who treated him on daily basis and knew his idea of getting dressed up was fishing something from the closet that didn’t smell too badly.

“Why is it important to you that this is so sophisticated?”

“It isn’t, but that sweater crosses too many lines into goofy territory,” Dean argued. “Just go put on something normal and stop arguing with me, dammit.”

Castiel knew there was no point in convincing Dean to try and take it easy. He was too stressed out to listen to him, but it was pity, because Castiel actually liked his sweater. He dragged his feet to the stairs and was about to put a foot in the first step when the doorbell rang. Dean tugged his shirt and went to open.

Bobby Singer and Jody Mills were there, and what they were wearing was so tacky Castiel had to stop in his tracks. Bobby had a navy blue sweater with two baubles on it and the word ‘ _Balls!_ ’ scribbled underneath, while Jody was wearing a red one with a big ‘ _BAH, HUMBUG!_ ’ in white. Bobby looked really uncomfortable, like the hilarious nature of his sweater was an affront to his scowl. Jody, on the other hand, was very pleased with herself.

“Hey, Dean-o,” she greeted him, punching him in the bicep as she walked in. “Are we too early?”

Dean glared at Castiel, like he was going to accuse him of somehow planning that, but he couldn’t send Jody and Bobby back to their homes to change.

“You’re just in time,” Dean told them, making his boyfriend a gesture. Castiel walked back down, trying to hide his triumphant smile. “Eggnog?”

 

* * *

 

At least three other people showed up wearing some variation of an ugly Christmas sweater, which made up for a grand total of half the people there wearing them. Dean was about to bust something trying to figure how in the world did they take their “Hey, let’s meet up for Christmas!” invitation to mean they had to show up dressed like Santa’s elves on their day off.

But at least everybody seemed to be getting along, he received some congratulations in both his eggnog and his flambé leg, and nobody ate the brownies Ash had brought, which was a win because Dean was convinced they were probably laced with pot. There was nonstop chatter all around and the room had a nice temperature, maybe because he had adjusted the thermostat to make it a little warmer than necessary in the hopes everybody would start taking off those damn sweaters.

“Nice thing you got going here,” Ellen commented when she went for another piece of the leg.

“Thank you,” Dean sighed, relieved that someone recognize it. Also relieved that Ellen was wearing a red shirt; he honestly thought he would have lost all respect for her if she had showed up with a Grinch in her top or something like that. “So how’s Jo?”

“She called,” Ellen said. “Said she was dropping by after New Year.”

“That’s cool…”

“Said she had someone to introduce me to,” Ellen added, with a visible grimace.

Dean could understand why. Jo was Ellen’s only daughter who’d dropped out of her Business Management career to move to Los Angeles and try to become a singer. Ellen hadn’t been too happy with her decision, so the two had spent some time not really talking to each other. Now they were back on speaking terms, but Ellen still agonized every time Jo told she had “met someone”. Last time it had been a wannabe rockstar with more tattoos than his skin could hold who had proceeded to put his feet up in the table and bad mouth Jo’s late father for some reason. Ellen had been fuming the following day, and Dean had been too scared to ask what exactly the guy had said, but at least Jo broke up with him soon afterwards.

“You know, I don’t even try anymore,” Ellen added, like she knew what Dean was thinking about. “It’s her life.”

“I get that,” Dean said. “But doesn’t it worry you?”

“Boy, I wake up worried sick every single day of my life,” Ellen replied. “But what can I tell her? If she’s making a mistake, she’s going to resent me for being right. And if it turns out okay, she’s going to resent me for being nosey. So you just gotta let things be, you know?”

Dean didn’t have time to think of an answer because the doorbell rang again.

The man at the other side of the door wasn’t wearing a Christmas sweater, and Dean was too relieved by that fact to hate him instantly, like he had promised himself he would.

“Hello, I’m Benny. Merry Christmas,” the guy introduced himself stepping inside and offering his free hand to Dean. He was holding a bottle of wine in the other with a red bow tied around it for some reason. “You must be Dean.”

“I guess I must be,” Dean said. “Nice to finally meet you.”

He tried to impose himself in the shaking, but Benny’s grip was a bone-crushingly strong. Dean barely managed to keep the smile up while he heard his knuckles cracking.

“Uh… what’s that?” he asked, as he shook his hand behind his back.

“Well, I thought it wasn’t right to show up empty-handed,” Benny shrugged and gave the bottle to Dean. “Meg said you’re a wine drinker.”

Dean stared at the bottle for a moment, debating whether to tell Benny Meg was playing them both. They had discussed their drinks of choice several times during Meg’s binges. She knew Dean was more a beer and whiskey guy and hated wine with a fiery passion. This was just the latest “screw you” she was sending him.

And for that reason, instead of getting angry or irritated, it just saddened him. Had he really screwed things over with Meg so thoroughly that she was resorting to petty revenges to taunt him?

“Thanks,” he said.

“Nice place you got here, brotha’.”

“Yeah, it’s not too shabby,” Dean shrugged. This was really taking the whole southern hospitality thing to a level where he couldn’t compete. Or maybe he could, because technically, he was the one dispensing hospitality. “Let me get your coat and give me a second to put this in the fridge. I’ll introduce you to everybody.”

“That’s nice, but I wouldn’t mind taking a bite first…”

So Dean decided he was going to stuff Benny’s face with food and kindness until he exploded. This was not in any way motivated by the fact he wanted him to report back to Meg what a great time he’d had and what an awesome party she missed. Dean just wanted to prove he could be a good host. And even if Benny did tell Meg all about it, well, it wasn’t the same as her sending him a drink she knew he hated. He probably couldn’t explain it out loud, but it was definitely different.

“This is Rachel, she works with Cas,” Dean introduced him to a group of three girls that had been standing in a corner for a while. “Hael, Cas’ little sister. And Pamela, she works tables at the Roadhouse.”

“That’s not all that I do,” Pamela said. “I’m also a psychic.”

“And she’s also a psychic, yes,” Dean resisted the urge to roll his eyes. “I keep forgetting about that one.”

“Dean here is a non-believer,” Pamela pointed out, needlessly. “But I sense you’re bit more open-minded.”

“Well, I am from New Orleans,” Benny commented with a shrug and a beam. “What can you tell me?”

“Well…” Pamela put a hand on his bicep, a move Dean knew was her favorite flirting opener. “I can sense you have been hurt by a woman that was very important to you in the past. A fiancé? A wife?”

“Oh, you’re good,” Benny commented.

“But you are a hopeless romantic,” Pamela added, narrowing her eyes and flipping her long hair back. “You’re still hoping to find that special someone.”

Dean was going to move on and leave Pamela to her fake predicting, but this was too good. She was hitting on him, and if Benny so much glanced back at her, Meg was going to get a detailed description of it and he was going to end out in the cold with the shape of her boot in his ass…

“Well, it’s a little too soon to tell,” Benny said, taking his cellphone out of his pocket. “But maybe I’m lucky enough to have already found her.”

He showed something to Pamela, whose flirty expression melted into a touched one.

“That is so cute!” she exclaimed.

“What?” Dean tried to look over her shoulder, but she was already passing the cellphone to Rachel. “What is it?”

“Oh, you painted that?” she asked, her eyes opened wide. “You’re so talented!”

“So, wait, you’re Meg’s boyfriend?” Hael asked, receiving the cellphone and glancing quickly at the picture before she nonchalantly passed it on to Dean.

The picture was from Meg’s living room, with her sitting in the futon underneath the wall where the words “FUCKING BITCH” had been plastered. Now the there was a big mural full of red and yellow roses, and Meg was sitting underneath it, laughing at the camera like Benny had just said something funny right before he took the picture.

“It’s too soon to tell,” Benny repeated, with a smirk. “But I certainly hope it leads to something great.”

Both Pamela and Rachel looked deeply moved, while Hael nodded with apparent approval.

“That’s good,” she commented. “I’m glad she found someone.”

She didn’t say ‘ _Someone that isn’t my brother_ ’, but Dean still felt the words hanging in the air.

So it had been obvious. Sam had noticed and clearly, Hael had noticed too. But it didn’t matter now, because Meg had decided to get out and move on. And that was fine, just fine, that was perfectly fine. That was what Dean had wanted her to do in the first place. Maybe once they got over their difference, the three of them could hang out like they used to, without given it a single thought.

If someone had asked what he meant for “it”, Dean would have struggled to find the words. He also wouldn’t have been able to explain why his blood was boiling all of the sudden.

“Woah, man, I would take it easy,” he told Benny. “Meg isn’t exactly fond of labels. You might scare her away.”

“I’m trying not to,” Benny said. “That’s why I said it was too soon to tell.”

“Right. You did say that. Twice.”

Dean finished up the eggnog he had in his hand without even tasting, feeling like the mightiest idiot to ever walk the Earth.

“Well, good for you,” he said. If it came out as sarcastic, that was because everyone else was being too sensitive, not because he meant it that way. “Really great. Mind if I steal him away, ladies? There’s still some people who’d sure like to meet him…”

“Wait, I want to know more about your painting,” Pamela commented.

“Yeah, and I want to know more about how you started dating again after your divorce,” Rachel said, with a snicker.

“Well, it wasn’t easy,” Benny admitted. “You gotta crash against a lot of walls before you find an open door. Or window to jump from.”

All three women started laughing and Dean got the hell out of dodge, feeling his irritation growing steadily.

He passed Castiel on his way to the kitchen. He was chatting up with Donna in a corner, both with plates of leg in their hands, and apparently complimenting each other’s Christmas sweaters. It didn’t matter. Dean needed anything to get away from Benny’s niceness and how he seemed to make anyone fall for his charm and…

His anger must have been obvious, because he heard Castiel calling after him, but didn’t stop until he was safely inside the kitchen. Two seconds later, Castiel followed him in.

“Hey, are you alright?” he asked him, taking a step forwards and stretching his hand to touch him.

“Perfectly fine,” Dean replied. He lifted one of their biggest kitchen knives and Castiel took a step backwards. “Everything is perfect. I’m going to serve the apple pie.”

“O… kay,” Castiel said. “Isn’t it a little early for that?”

“It’s the perfect time!” Dean replied, speaking in a louder pitch than strictly necessary. “Everybody’s chatting and laughing, it’s the perfect moment to sweeten things up with something I made myself and that anyone would feel sorry for missing!”

He was not talking about Meg, and if Castiel even dared to suggest otherwise, he was sleeping in the couch after the party. Castiel must have realized that, because he backed away slowly.

“Okay,” he muttered. “I’ll… just go keep entertaining the guests.”

Dean groaned under his breath something along the lines of ‘ _You do that_ ’ and took the pie out of the fridge. He stabbed it with all his might, and before thinking about whether it would be enough for everybody, he shoved an entire piece into his mouth.

 

* * *

 

The TV programs on Christmas Day clearly didn’t have any consideration for scrooges, grinches and solitary people like Meg. She had kicked off her shoes and wrapped herself in a blanket before collapsing on the futon for two glorious hours out of sheer exhaustion. It was always sad to see the patients who clearly have no idea which day it was or why were those people (some of them close relatives) talking to them or giving them presents (that had to be thoroughly pre-scan by the nurses before they were deemed appropriate). It was even sadder to see the people who were mildly aware of what was going on and got no visits whatsoever. And oh, God, watching the other nurses prepare a Christmas “dinner” for them and prompting them to carol was suicide fodder, so no one could really blaming for preferring to go home and sink into unconsciousness for a while.

When she woke up, she microwaved some ramen and ate directly out of the container. Then she wrapped herself in even more blankets and spent a good hour and a half zapping through channels. Finally, she settled for a shitty _Christmas Carol_ musical, because it was the least awful of all the holiday-themed movies around. Surprisingly, _It’s a Wonderful Life_ was nowhere to be found. Not that Meg would have actually watched that super corny, stupid movie.

“Still not the worst Christmas ever,” she muttered to herself, but she didn’t know how exactly she was trying to fool.

Right in the middle of the Ghost of Christmas Present rambling about good will towards man, her cellphone lit up with Castiel’s face on the screen. She considered not answering for a second, but the truth was she couldn’t be any more pathetic than she already was.

“Dean is having a crisis of confidence,” Castiel said as soon as she answered. No “ _Hello_ ”, no “ _How are you?_ ” or “ _Merry Christmas_ ” or “ _Are you busy?_ ” But Meg was already used to the way Castiel handled phone calls, cutting straight to the chase like life was too short for formalities and small talk.

“How come?” Meg asked, hoping he couldn’t hear the smile in her face.

“Benny being as great as you said broke him,” Castiel said. “I think he was kind of expecting him to be another douchebag.”

“Well, I did warn him this one was okay.”

“You did indeed,” Castiel chuckled.

They stayed in silence for a second. Meg watched outside of the window. There hadn’t been any remarkable snowstorms after the one at Thanksgiving, so that night all roads were open. That meant that probably all the people they had invited over probably made it, and the house would be filled with warmth and people drinking eggnog and eating Dean’s wonderful food. Meg didn’t really appreciate the breakfasts and lunches he cooked for her until she had to go back to microwavable shit and eating whatever the hospital cafeteria felt like feeding her.

“Oh, my God, you’re not my mom and this isn’t high school,” she had told him once or twice while rolling her eyes.

“But this is your favorite sandwich,” Dean had tempted her, waving a brown paper bag in front of her.

And if Meg had taken it on those occasions, well, it was because she hated seeing perfectly good peanut butter go to waste.

“How’s the party going?” she asked, when she realized she had been quiet for too long.

“It’s good,” Castiel said. “I wish you were here, though. Dean would cut his right arm before admitting it, but he wishes it too.”

Meg was tempted to ask something along the lines of “Why?” but she figured Castiel wasn’t the right person to answer that. If she wanted to know why Dean cared so much about her, she would have to ask him.

“Maybe you can drop by after your shift,” Castiel suggested.

“Yeah,” Meg muttered. “Maybe.”

They stayed in silence again. It wasn’t like they had nothing to say to each other. It was simply that what they had to say, they could understand perfectly well without the need of words.

“Well, I guess I’ll see you around,” Castiel said. “Merry Christmas, Meg.”

“Merry Christmas, Clarence.”

This had been another pointless call, but Meg couldn’t really be mad about it this time. Except that when she put her cellphone aside, she felt lonelier than she had before.

 

* * *

 

Benny managed to step on every single one of Dean’s nerves by making small talk with each and every one of the people present and showing interest in what they had to say, by staying until the party was over and by downright offering his help to clean afterwards.

“It’s no trouble at all, brotha’,” he insisted. “I can wash a few plates and dishes if it makes your life a little easier.”

He was actually so damn eager to be nice Dean had to resist the urge to tell him to stop it. And the worst part was he didn’t think Benny could have stopped it, because he wasn’t faking it all. He was just that considerate.

“It’s fine,” Dean said, grabbing him by the arm and all but dragging him to the door. “Cas and I can take care of this. In fact we should be the ones to take care of it, because… because…”

He stuttered to find a suitable excuse and turned to Castiel for help.

“Dean is very particular about cleanliness,” his boyfriend said with a completely deadpanned face. Dean wanted to smack him, but it was way better than what he had.

“Yeah, that’s right,” he confessed. “I’m a complete maniac. I could never appreciate anything you do. So… just…”

Benny blinked at him a couple of times, but then he shrugged.

“Okay. Well, thank you for everything. Goodnight and Merry Christmas.”

“Same to you.”

And then he was finally gone.

After the door closed behind him, Dean sat on the couch, grabbed a cushion, covered his face with it and screamed his lungs out. His frustration prevented him from noticing Castiel patting his back at first.

“Oh, my God, why he kept being so nice?!” Dean exploded. “And did you notice how _everybody_ just… liked him?”

“He seems to have made a good impression,” Castiel said, calmly.

“Yes,” Dean growled. “And you know the worst part?”

Castiel simply tilted his head, encouraging him to go on.

“I liked him too,” Dean muttered. Then he grabbed the cushion again and screamed into it some more. Castiel patiently waited for him to be done before speaking:

“This is a great opportunity for you and Meg to reconcile,” he said. “I’m sure she will appreciate you admitting you were wrong.”

“Don’t act so mighty about all this,” Dean said, narrowing his eyes at his boyfriend. “You didn’t trust him either when I first mentioned him.”

“It’s true,” Castiel said. “But that was sleep-deprived paranoia and now, I can freely admit… I liked him just as much.”

Dean sighed and leaned back on the couch.

“Maybe we are too invested in Meg’s love life.”

“It would appear to be the case,” Castiel said. “All that’s left to wonder is why.”

“Yeah,” Dean agreed. “But you know what? I’m too tired, and that Elvis’ Christmas album on repeat all night gave me a headache. Let’s just put things in order and figure it out tomorrow.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Castiel approved. He got up to turn off the music, and in the time he took him to come back to the couch, Dean had already fallen asleep with his head in the couch’s armrest.

 

* * *

 

They weren’t exactly sure how much time but it couldn’t have been that long. The doorbell rang, and Dean opened his eyes to find Castiel curled up on his chest like a cat. He pushed him a little, and Castiel groaned and protested but finally moved enough for Dean to stand up.

“If you lost your coat, it ain’t here,” he said. “Everybody took theirs, so…”

Dean’s voice trailed off. Meg was standing outside.

If she had just left her shift, she’d had time to shower and change out of her scrubs, but apparently she forgotten her gloves, because she kept one hand inside of her jacket for warmth. Other than that, Dean had rarely seen her so well-groomed. She was even wearing make-up, and her hair was all fluffy and curly, like she had just brushed before coming over there.

For a second or two, they just stared at each other, like they didn’t know how to start saying what needed to be said.

“Uh… the party’s over,” Dean said in the end.

“I know.”

“Benny’s not here.”

“I know,” Meg repeated. “He texted me to let me know he got home okay.”

They fell into silence again. Meg shifted her weight from one foot to another, uncomfortable.

“So, do you want to start or do I?” she asked. “Because I’m kind of freezing out here.”

Dean had to take a deep breath. Yes, he had promised himself he would apologize, but now that he actually had to, it was really freaking hard to find the words. So he decided to go for the most basic ones:

“I’m sorry I…,” he said, at the same time Meg said:

“I shouldn’t have…”

They both stopped and looked at each other again. But this time, at least they were both smiling.

“I guess I’m just not used to people caring… about me, I mean,” Meg said.

“Yeah. I can get a bit overbearing sometimes.”

“Sometimes?”

“Don’t push your luck,” Dean rolled his eyes. “You sent me wine.”

“I know,” Meg snickered, like that was the punch line to some joke. “Sorry. I’ll make it up to you.”

And like a magician revealing the rabbit they’d just pulled out of the hat, she opened her jacket to show him she had been holding onto a bottle of Johnny Walker. His favorite brand.

Dean smiled and stepped aside for Meg to come on in. For two people who so clearly hated apologizing, he believed they’d done a good job.

Castiel sat on the couch, rubbing his eyes like he couldn’t understand what he was seeing.

“Meg?” he inquired, with a goofy happy smile plastered all over his face. “Hey. You made it.”

“’Course I did, you nerd,” she replied, gesturing for him to scoot to make room for her.

Dean brought out the shot glasses and poured the whiskey to the brim in the three of them. They picked them up and held in the air, not sure what to toast to.

“To… the spirit of the holidays?” Castiel suggested.

“To Christmas together,” Meg said. She shrugged when the other two shot her confused looks. “Sorry. I saw a crappy musical before coming here.”

“I thought you were working before coming here,” Dean frowned.

“Oh, just make the toast and drink your liquor, Winchester.”

Dean laughed as the glasses clinked before they emptied them. Castiel coughed a little and Meg chuckled at him. Dean hadn’t noticed why, but she had ended up sitting in the middle. In another moment, he would have felt uneasy over it, but right now, as they settled in in peaceful silence, he was too content to make anything off it. He also didn’t protest when Meg propped her feet up in the coffee table, like that was her home. Like she belonged there and never should have left in the first place.


	23. Options

Things more or less returned to normal after New Year. Well, normal as Dean knew it when Castiel was working hysterically on his book now that he had a concrete deadline. He had to have everything ready for the first week of February, or else Rachel would have his head. And now that she was no longer preoccupied with her divorce, apparently she had extra time to harass Castiel into doing his job.

Dean probably wouldn’t have felt so abandoned if he had someone to fall back on, but it turned out Meg having a boyfriend had more disadvantages that he had counted on. She wasn’t around the bar that much, and in the couple of occasions she showed up, it was with Benny on toll. Dean had no idea why that bothered him, but he had the feeling he couldn’t chat with Meg the way he was used to when that guy was around. And that was weird, because when it was Castiel, he had no issue joking and talking to Meg like when it was just the two. But around Benny, he just stifled. Maybe it was because Benny was a stranger to him, but whatever the reason, it just wasn’t the same.

And okay, maybe he had come to terms with the fact Benny was a good guy and whatever, but he still didn’t like how he sat so close to Meg and how he put an arm around her neck. It was like he was signaling every other person in miles around that she was his girl. It was like it was signaling him that Meg was with him now, and why should Dean cared? He had Cas. Meg was just his friend. There was no need to get all macho territorial on him.

But whatever, he could deal with Benny if it meant he got to see Meg. He could totally deal with him being at his upcoming birthday party. It was completely fine.

“Are you sure?” Meg asked, arching an eyebrow.

Dean took a deep breath while he pretended to dry a glass he had already dried about three times. He wasn’t smooth at all at he couldn’t blame Meg for calling him out on it.

“Yeah, it’s okay,” he told her after a few seconds he used to calm down. “Meg, it’s really… look, if you’re happy, then it’s cool.”

That was a little closer to the truth.

“I’m happy,” Meg said, with a sideways smirk.

“Then it’s cool.”

Meg took a swig form her beer, while Dean watched her closely. She did look happy, relaxed. She hadn’t been drinking as much as she used to, and it had been a while since he’d seen her walk in with her hair in a messy ponytail and her creased scrubs. She was using more make-up and wearing better fitting clothes, like her closet had magically vomited a string of tight jeans, vaporous blouses and high heel boots. It was like she hadn’t even cared to look nice before, but now she was putting on some extra effort into her appearance.

And she looked prettier than ever. Not that he noticed that. Not that he cared.

She finished her beer and dropped a bill over the counter.

“Thanks for the tip,” Dean joked. “I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“I don’t think so,” she replied. “Benny’s taking me to the movies. Tell Cas I say hi, though.”

“Yeah,” Dean promised as Meg walked out. “If I see him.”

He was getting mentally prepared for the fact that weeks leading up to his birthday were going to be depressingly lonely.

And then, one particularly shitty day in which it had been drizzling for hours and the clients had been rude to him at both his jobs, Jo Harvelle waltzed in her mother’s bar again.

“Hey, bartender,” her sweet voice called him from behind. “Can I have a girly drink with one of those little umbrellas on the glass?”

Dean recognized the joke right away. And of course, when he turned around, there she was, with the playful grin he knew, and suddenly, everything seemed a little better than before.

“Hey, you!” Dean said, walking out from behind the counter to give her a tight hug. He took in the smell of leather, rain and her perfume, and then backed away to look at her. She looked to have developed a little bronzed, but that was apparently a thing that happened to people who lived in California. Other than that, she looked the same as always, with her big brown eyes and her straight blonde hair. “I missed your face!”

“I missed yours,” Jo said, and proceeded to poke a finger in his stomach. “You’ve got fat.”

“Maybe, but I’m sexier than ever,” Dean replied, with a shrug.

He hugged her again and swiftly scanned the bar over her shoulders. There were no guys with tattoos around. Well, there were a couple by the pool table, but he knew who those were.

“Here,” Jo grabbed him by the hand and took her to where two girls were sitting side by side. “These are Dorothy,” she introduced him to a girl with long brown hair and a biker jacket. “And Charlie,” she pointed at the other one, who had red short hair, a flannel shirt and a shirt underneath that showed Princess Leia with the golden bikini.

“Hi!” Charlie said with a smile. Dorothy just half-heartedly waved her hand, like Dean wasn’t worth her full attention.

“Nice to meet you both,” he said.

Jo didn’t attempt to introduce him to anybody else, so he figured these were the only two people that she brought along.

“You mind getting them drinks while I go to the back and say hi to Mom?”

“That’s what I’m here for,” Dean replied, opening the counter for Jo to slide back. “So what’s your poison, girls?”

“Whiskey,” Dorothy said, dryly. “Neat.”

“Hey, you’re one of mine,” Dean commented. Dorothy gave him a half smile that disappeared instantly, making him doubt if he ever saw it all, so he turned his gaze to Charlie.

“Uh, can I have one of those drinks with the umbrella?” Charlie asked. “I’ve always wanted to try one of those.”

“Whiskey and a drink with an umbrella,” Dean replied. He didn’t know whether to be amused or exasperated by the vagueness of the orders. “Coming right up.”

When he turned around, he thought he heard Charlie muttering: “Be nicer, he’s her friend” to which Dorothy replied with a short groan. Dean decided he liked Charlie.

“So how you guys met Jo?” he asked them, putting Dorothy’s glass in front of her before getting the cocktail shaker.

“Jo was working as an extra in a movie,” Charlie told him. “And Dotty is a stunt double, so they met on set during a lunch break. They hit it off, so Dotty brought her home to introduce her to me, and we all got along so… here we are.”

“Cool,” Dean said, as he poured the cocktail in a glass and made a point to add an extra colorful umbrella to it. “So you’re an actress too?”

“No, I work as a CGI animator in a small independent studio,” Charlie replied.

“You work at Dreamworks,” Dorothy corrected her.

“True,” Charlie said. Her smile was not at all humble, like she was particularly proud of that. “When you go see Kung-Fu Panda 3, you can tell everybody you met the person who did all the pandas’ hair.”

“Awesome, can I get your autograph?” Dean joked.

Charlie chuckled, but Dorothy just gave him another of those flash smiles before downing her whiskey in one gulp. It was like she was trying to prove a point, but Dean wasn’t exactly sure what it was and frankly, he was a bit scared to ask.

“So does Jo live with you or…?”

“Well, she does crash at our place a lot, but we’re not at that stage yet,” Charlie shrugged.

“What?” Dean frowned, confused. “So you gotta go through stages before you become someone’s roommate?”

That managed to elicit a laugh from Dorothy. It was more like a sarcastic snicker, in fact.

“Oh, yeah, roommates,” she said, rolling her eyes. “That’s what we are. Best of friends. Just gals, being pals.”

“Dotty, play nice.”

By the time Dean realized he had stuck his foot in his mouth, his shoe was halfway down his throat.

“Oh,” he muttered. “Oh, I get it. I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Charlie told him, while Dorothy shot him a glare that completely contradicted her. “Don’t worry about it.”

“No, I should have noticed,” Dean insisted. “I mean, no girl with any interest in guys would ever wear that shirt.”

Charlie looked down, like only then she’d noticed the half-naked young Carrie Fisher in her outfit.

“That’s true,” she admitted. Dorothy nodded, like that was the smartest thing Dean had said all night.

The door of the back opened and Jo and Ellen walked out. Ellen had her stern face on, so whatever it was that Jo had told her, she was probably still trying to digest. She looked at Charlie, and then Dorothy, and took a deep breath.

“Okay,” she said. “So which one you’re dating again?”

Dean stared at Jo, wide-eyed and confused. “What?”

Jo closed her eyes for a second, like she was arming herself with patience.

“No, mom, you didn’t understand,” she said, stepping outside the counter and going to stand between Charlie and Dorothy. “I’m dating both of them,” she added, throwing an arm around each girl.

“What?!” Dean repeated, though it might have come out with a little unintelligible, with his jaw hanging open like that.

“Oh,” Ellen said. “Okay.”

She grabbed the nearest bottle of whiskey and took a long swig directly from it.

 

* * *

 

“Are people even allowed to do that?” Dean asked later.

He and Ellen were watching Dorothy, Charlie and Jo around the pool table. Dorothy and Jo were playing like professionals, but Charlie kept missing her shots. Dean figured she must have been doing on purpose because Jo and Dorothy took turns to teach her how to do it by grabbing her by the waist and leaning really close towards her, which was… no, he wasn’t thinking that. Jo was like the little sister he never wanted, so he was most definitely not thinking about it.

It was cute. That was the only thought he allowed himself to have.

“Kid, I don’t even know anymore,” Ellen replied. “Maybe they are in Los Angeles? I don’t understand that place.”

She took another swig from the whiskey. Dean had tried suggesting she slowed down, but Ellen had just glared him down until he shut up.

“You remember when she had a crush on you?” she sighed. “That was so easy. I mean, not easy to watch her being disappointed when you fell head over heels for the scribbler, but that at least I could understand.”

Dean didn’t know if she meant she could understand Jo having a crush on him or him falling for Castiel (who probably would have taken offense at being called “the scribbler”), and frankly, he was scared to ask.

“She didn’t even used to like girls,” Ellen complained. “Do you think this is a phase? It may just be a phase…”

“Okay, first of all, what would be the problem with Jo liking girls?” Dean asked, crooking an eyebrow.

“Nothing,” Ellen closed her eyes, a gesture that made her look a lot like her daughter. “Sorry. It’s the shock speaking.”

“And second… well, it does make sense,” Dean admitted. After the initial surprise, he started looking some of Jo’s behavior from a few years back under a new light. “You remember that English girl who used to wait tables here, before Jo moved?”

“Bela? Yeah, that bitch was all sweet and helpful until she stole money from us and got the hell out of dodge,” Ellen replied. “Why?”

“Well… they were tight, and Jo did seem too heartbroken when she left for having been just a friend.”

That was not the whole story, but Jo had made him promise she wasn’t going to tell Ellen it had been her who trusted Bela with the bar’s backdoor spare key. She had downright cried when Bela revealed herself to be a thieving whore. He had thought Jo’s exaggerated reaction back then had been the result of a cocktail of emotions that included him having just rejected her for Cas and Ellen being mad at her for dropping out of college, for which Bela’s betrayal had been just the cherry on top. But thinking about it now, it did look appropriate if she’d had a crush on her, because that would mean it was the second of her crushes in such a short time that hurt her, intentionally or not.

Ellen seemed to be reaching the same conclusion, because her mouth was opened and her eyes were practically popping out.

“Oh, fucking hell,” she muttered, before taking yet another swig, this time longer than before. “Now that you mention it, I’m sure glad it’s them and not fucking Bela. I mean, at least these ones look like they’re nice girls.”

“I don’t know,” Dean frowned. “Dorothy seems a little uptight.”

“Maybe she just doesn’t like you.”

“Nonsense, I’m adorable!” Dean protested.

At least that got Ellen to laugh a little. Dean took that chance to pry the whiskey bottle away from her hands.

“Well, I guess that’s it,” Ellen sighed. “I’m gonna have to accept it. And get the shotgun ready in case someone tries to make some smart comments about her.”

“I’m pretty sure Jo is perfectly capable of shooting them herself,” Dean pointed out.

“Yeah, but I don’t want her to go to jail now she’s finally met someone,” Ellen shrugged. “I’m gonna go wash my face and then we close, okay?”

Ellen staggered towards the back, and when Dean offered her help, she just muttered something about having drunk hard whiskey since before Dean was born and disappeared into the bathroom.

Jo seemed to have been waiting exactly that, because she told something to Dorothy and Charlie and approached the counter to talk to Dean as he started putting away all the glasses and bottles.

“How is she taking it?” she asked.

“Well, she’s a little bit shocked, but she’ll get over it,” Dean shrugged. “You know she loves you no matter how many girlfriends or boyfriends you have, right?”

“Yeah,” Jo chuckled. “I mean, I guess I could have brought only one of them to ease her into it, but I couldn’t choose. Also, that would have been dishonest.”

“God forbids you ever lie to your mother,” Dean rolled his eyes, and Jo giggled. “So you and your…?” he stops, uncertain.

“Girlfriends,” Jo helped him.

“Yeah, that,” Dean said. Like Ellen, he was also still trying to wrap his head around the entire thing. “Are you three gonna be around for my birthday?”

“What are you doing for your birthday?”

“Just using my employee discount and buying drinks for all my friends,” Dean explained.

“Sounds amazing,” Jo nodded. “We wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

Ellen reappeared. She looked a little more stable, but she still slurred a little when she spoke:

“Well, one of your girls is gonna have to sleep on the couch,” she said, cutting to the chase immediately. “Because I only prepared a bed for two in your room.”

“We can manage,” Jo replied. “Charlie’s tiny and we like to cuddle.”

“And that’s more information than strictly needed.”

“Sorry, Mom,” Jo said.

But the wink she shot Dean indicated she wasn’t sorry at all.

 

* * *

 

The house was silent and darkened when Dean arrived, but when he wandered in, he could hear fade music and the rhythmic typing of a keyboard coming from Castiel’s studio. He knew his boyfriend was working hard and he probably shouldn’t interrupt him, but he had a lot of thoughts going to his head and he needed to share them with someone.

He knocked softly on the door, but when there wasn’t an answer, he just pushed the door a little. Castiel had his glasses on the tip of his nose and a look of complete concentration, but as soon as he heard him, he looked up and smiled.

“Hey,” he greeted him.

“Hey,” Dean replied, walking towards the desk to give Castiel a kiss on the forehead. “How’s the book going?”

“It’s coming together,” Castiel sighed with relief. Nobody could have ever guessed it by the complete chaos over his desk, but Dean had accepted long ago he would never understand what kind of inspiration Castiel drew from utter chaos. “If I keep this up, I might be able to take the night off to celebrate your birthday properly.”

Dean was pretty sure there was a sexual innuendo in that comment, and as tempting as it was to tell him “Well, take the night off and let’s celebrate now!”, he still had something he needed to take off his chest. He dragged the spare armchair and dragged it closer to Castiel’s desk.

“So… Jo came back today,” he commented.

“Oh, how is she?”

“She’s good, she looks very good,” Dean said. “And, uh… funny story…”

He told Castiel about Dorothy and Charlie, Ellen’s reaction and the sudden realization that Jo might had always been bisexual, like him. Castiel listened to him with an interested expression, but he wasn’t nearly as surprised as Dean had thought he would be.

“Well, in hindsight, that does explain why she was so devastated when Bela revealed her true colors,” he commented.

“Yeah, that was what I was thinking too,” Dean said. “And also, uh…”

He had no idea what he was trying to say, but luckily for him, Castiel was an expert in his incoherent stuttering. He took off his glasses and shot him one those incandescent blue gazes.

“Something on your mind?”

“Did you know that was a thing people could do?” Dean asked, after some more seconds of stuttering. “Dating more than one person and everybody knowing about it and being cool with it?”

“Yes,” Castiel said, a little condescending smirk in his lips. “I did know that. There’s a world for it as well.”

Dean would have to look it up on the dictionary, because he suddenly felt completely self-conscious for not knowing about it before when everybody else seemed to be aware that was possible.

Well, maybe not everybody else. Maybe it was just Castiel, with his progressiveness and his love for big words, and frankly he was so irritating sometimes, Dean wanted to smother him with kisses and… woah, his thoughts really took a turn for the gutter there. He shook his head and focused on the conversation again.

“So, uh…” he muttered. “Why didn’t you… say anything?”

Castiel frowned for the first time since Dean had walked into his studio.

“What do you mean?”

“I didn’t know that was even an option,” Dean explained. “I mean, if I had known, maybe…”

He stopped, because he didn’t know how to finish the sentence. He didn’t know what he would have done, to be honest. He didn’t know why he was interrupting Castiel’s work to talk about that, because really, it was a pointless conversation now that Meg had Benny and she was so happy with him.

Castiel tilted his head, and then got up to get closer to Dean.

“Forget I said anything,” Dean muttered, avoiding his boyfriend’s gaze. “It doesn’t matter.”

Of course Castiel wasn’t going to let up so easily. He sat on Dean’s lap, so close to him Dean had no choice but to look him in the eye.

“I thought about it,” Castiel confessed. “I would be lying if I say I didn’t. I thought suggesting we could eventually open up our relationship to… other people.”

The inflexion in his voice made Dean realize he had someone specific in mind, but he didn’t ask who it was. It would have been even more painful to find out they had been thinking about the same person.

“And why didn’t you?” Dean asked. It might have come out to rough, so he immediately lifted his hands and put them on Castiel’s cheeks, to let him he didn’t resent him for not saying anything.

“Well, knowing you, I thought such a suggestion would make you feel I wasn’t as invested in this relationship as you are,” Castiel explained. “Or that you’re not good enough for me. Which is not the case, and never will be,” he added immediately, and left a peck in the palm of Dean’s hand.

“So you didn’t say anything because you figured I wouldn’t get my head out of my ass,” Dean concluded. “Awesome.”

But he couldn’t deny Castiel had a point. If he had come out and point blank told him “I want us to date other people”, Dean probably would’ve had a nervous breakdown. Hell, just having his brother pointing out the way Meg talked about Castiel had prompted Dean to push her away, even though (he realized now) that was the last thing he really wanted. Maybe he just wasn’t made for sharing people that way.

“You are who you are,” Castiel said. “I know how hard it was for you to come around to us. I didn’t expect you to be open-minded to polyamory immediately, so I was trying to find the right way and the right moment to bring it up. And then, well…”

“You figured she wouldn’t be interested,” Dean said, dropping all pretenses they were talking in abstract.

“She did go out and started dating someone else,” Castiel said. “I say that’s a very clear sign she wouldn’t be interested.”

“Yeah,” Dean said, bitterly. He hid his face in Castiel’s neck, and decided to never mention it had been his fault Meg had felt compelled to date someone else in the first place.


	24. It Could Be Great

It didn’t snow on Dean’s birthday. He was having a very good row of mild weather days for his celebrations those days, and maybe he had to thank global warming for that, but he was glad they were going to have a nice reunion with plenty of alcohol and food. And besides, after the initial awkwardness had passed, Dean realized Charlie and Dorothy were actually very cool.

Well, Dorothy kept looking at him like she wanted to challenge him to a fight, but Charlie had a lot in common with him and Castiel. She had an undying love for all things nerdy, and they spent a good hour discussing which dice was better for a D&D game and debating if Start Trek was superior to Star Wars. Charlie warned him she would defend Star Wars to her last breath, even though yes, the franchise now belonged to her employer’s main competitor, what was your point?

“You should see the new movie,” she said. “In fact, since we’re here, we should all go together to see it!”

Jo and Dorothy groaned audibly.

“Red, we’ve already seen the new movie.”

“Three times,” Jo added, with a tint of despair in her voice.

“Well, I can’t help it if it’s the most awesome thing to happen in science fiction this side of the century,” Charlie replied.

“Really? I thought it was just a rehash of _A New Hope_ ,” Dean commented. “A good rehash, but still…”

Dorothy, Jo and Castiel turned their heads towards him. Dorothy was clearly marveling at the fact there existed somebody who didn’t sing the praises of the movie, Jo had a mocking smirk in her lips as if saying “Of course you’ve seen it, you nerd”, and Castiel was just plain confused.

“You went to see it without me?” he asked, in a slightly hurt tone.

Instead of answering, Dean looked at the door.

“Oh, look, there’s Meg and Benny!” he exclaimed. “Hey, guys! Over here!”

Meg turned her head and immediately smiled at them.

“Hey, birthday boy!” she greeted him, taking strides towards their table that soon left Benny behind. Dean immediately wrapped his arms around her. He glanced at Benny over shoulder, but the guy didn’t react to it at all. He just gave him a curt nod for a greeting and stood there holding something under his arm. “Big thirty three, huh?”

“Who would have thought I’d live this long?” Dean laughed.

“Well, I’m glad you did,” Meg replied. “Here,” she added, gesturing Benny to get closer. “I got you a little something.”

Benny handed him the thing he had been holding onto. It was a squared hanging neatly wrapped up in red paper. Dean could have waited until later to open it, but he was actually too excited, so he just tore the wrapping right there. It was a frame with a Led Zeppelin poster, with a hooded figure holding a lamp and some of the lyrics to _Stairway to Heaven_ by its side.

“It’s for you to hang in the living room,” Meg said. “Castiel has his studio filled with his things; it’s only fair you’ve got something on your own elsewhere…”

“I love it!” Dean interrupted her. “Thank you!”

Meg was blushing when Dean hugged her again, but she didn’t lose her cool for one second.

“Well, I got the thing from the Internet,” she said. “But Benny did the frame.”

“Oh,” Dean said, and cleared his throat so his voice would sound a little more sincere when he added: “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome, brotha’,” Benny replied, with his usual kind beam.

“Now let me say hi to everyone else,” Meg said, taking a step to go around Dean.

Castiel had stood up behind him, and he also gave Meg a hug, though Dean had the impression it was a lot shorter than his. The conversation they’d had just a few days ago was still fresh in his mind, so he couldn’t help but to wonder if it was too in Castiel’s mind, and maybe he was uncomfortable around Meg as a consequence of that.

Or maybe he was just imagining things, because as soon as Meg asked him how he was, Castiel accused his boyfriend:

“He went to see _Star Wars_ without me.”

“You were busy with the book!” Dean protested.

“Well, it doesn’t matter,” Meg said, lassoing her arm around Castiel’s. “We haven’t seen it either, so you can totally come with us.”

“Thank you, Meg,” Castiel said, shooting Dean a smug smile. “It’s nice to know I still have people who care about me.”

Dean huffed at the insinuation and sat next to Dorothy.

“Do what you want,” he groaned. “I’m just gonna hang here with my friends, Jo, Charlie and Dotty.”

Dorothy immediately glared at him.

“Don’t call me Dotty,” she said, in a slightly threatening tone.

“Don’t call her… yeah,” Charlie muttered.

“Only we call her that,” Jo added in a whisper.

And then Meg and Castiel laughed in his face. Dean was just glad to know there were things that didn’t change.

Afterwards, Pamela, Ash, Anna and Raphael showed up, so they had to keep adding tables and chairs to their already crowded corner until there were so many people they couldn’t have a real conversation. Ellen brought them pizza and hanged around, but she didn’t stick for long because she had to keep things running at the bar since “my bartender is having a party”. She put a hand on Jo’s shoulder and squeezed a little, so Dean figured everything was okay between them again.

It was a happy night. He got even more presents than he expected. People laughed, talked and drank beer until he wasn’t even sure they were having a coherent conversation anymore or if everybody was just talking at everybody about different things. At some point, Castiel forgave him for having watched Star Wars without him and leaned against his shoulder. Even Dorothy began to relax: the more she drank, the less she looked like she wanted to start a brawl, and more like she wanted to do some very dangerous parkour antics.

“No, listen to me,” she argued in the face of Benny’s disbelief. “It’s perfectly possible to jump of a three story building into a four story one, roof to roof, Spiderman style. I’ve done it before, and I will do it. Hell, I will do it right now…”

She tried getting up, with a resolute expression, like she was absolutely going to find a building right at that moment to prove it. Jo and Charlie grabbed her by the hands and sat her down immediately.

“You’re drunk, Dotty,” Charlie said, although her giggling indicated she was a little less than sober herself.

Dorothy just put an arm around each of her girlfriends’ necks and pulled her closer to her.

“Ask me to jump through a ring of fire in my bike,” she said. “I’ll do it just to impress you, you pretty chicks.”

“Stop,” Jo laughed.

“What kind of bike you got?” Dean asked.

“You know, these girls are alright,” Dorothy commented, like she hadn’t even heard Dean’s question. “But Harley will always be my first love.”

What followed was an extensive and barely coherent monologue about motorcycles, while Jo and Charlie rolled their eyes like they’d heard Dorothy rambling about them too many times. Meanwhile, at the other side of the table, Pamela was offering to read Meg’s palm to determine her compatibility with Benny.

“Ah, no, thanks,” Meg shook her head. “I’d rather find out by myself.”

“Pity,” Pamela clicked her tongue, but she wasn’t as disappointed as she said, because she immediately turned to Anna and Raphael and offered to tell them how many children they were going to have. At some point, Ash and Charlie started geeking out about computers and operative systems, and Ash started telling everybody about the time he built a computer from scratch when he was sixteen.

“That’s impressive,” Charlie said, because she was the only on the table who understood Ash’s technobabble. “What kind of motherboard did you use?”

Around two in the morning, everyone had either reached their alcohol limit intake or remembered they had somewhere to be or something to do the next day. Dean thanked them for coming and didn’t try to stop them. He genuinely was just happy for everybody who came. He didn’t even mind Benny’s presence that much.

As the chatter and the general noise of the bar faded, Castiel closed his eyes and started snoozing with his face in the crook of Dean’s neck. His capacity to fall asleep whenever y whatever position was admirable. Dean caught Meg’s eye and pointed at Castiel with his chin. Meg smiled like a cat who’d just seen a fat, clumsy canary at its mercy. She leaned closer and whispered in Castiel’s ear:

“It’s publishing day.”

Castiel jumped awake like someone had shoved a firework up his ass with a look of absolute horror in his face. Dean and Meg completely cracked up.

“Don’t ever do that again,” Castiel begged, mortified. Meg made no promises.

“This has been awesome,” Meg said, wiping the tears of laughter from her eyes. “But we should really go too.”

“Okay,” Dean said, standing up. “Let me walk you to the door.”

“I’m sure we can find the door all on our own, brotha’,” Benny commented softly. Dean squared his shoulders. Maybe he’d had more beers than he had counted, because he insisted:

“Let me walk you to the door.”

“Dean, it’s fine,” Meg intervened.

Dean backed off, but he still made a point to hug her goodbye and gestured for Castiel to do the same.

“Don’t be a stranger,” Cas told her. “We gotta get together before I leave for my book tour.”

“Sure thing,” Meg said. “But don’t you have to have a book ready before you do that?”

“You’re not funny,” Castiel narrowed her eyes at her, while Dean chuckled behind his back.

Meg stuck her tongue out at him, and then turned around to let Benny lasso his arm around her waist. The walked out together like that, with Dean and Castiel’s eyes following until they disappeared through the door.

It was like Ellen had been waiting for that sign, because she immediately perked up behind the counter and shouted at Dean:

“It’s officially not your birthday anymore. You made the mess, you’re cleaning it up!”

“Yes, ma’am,” Dean said, obediently.

“Here,” Jo put her beer down and stood up. “Let me help you.”

So that’s how they ended up washing the dishes and glasses in the kitchen and classifying the bottles of beer for recycle. Ellen would have just thrown them all away, but Jo was environmentally conscious now. Los Angeles had definitely changed her in unexpected ways.

“This brings back the memories, huh?” Jo commented, as she they were elbow deep in water and soap.

“Oh definitely,” Dean chuckled. He was about to comment on some of those memories from when they both worked together there when Jo interrupted him:

“Alright, ask away.”

“What?”

“I know it’s been eating you up,” Jo replied. “You can ask. I promise it won't bother me.”

Dean could have said he didn’t know what she was talking about, but that would have been insulting to her and very unsatisfactory to his curiosity. He still took his time scratching cheese form the plates, thinking about the best way to bring up his doubts.

“How does it work, exactly?” he asked, in the end.

“Well, it takes a lot of talking,” Jo explained. “And negotiations, and limits. Charlie and Dotty were already dating before I met them, so I’m the one who is kind of new to them, finding out how it works. But for what I can tell you, you need a lot of trust. And honesty.”

“And does no one gets jealous or…?”

“That’s why you need a lot of trust,” Jo shrugged. “The thing is I thought Charlie was going to get jealous, because I was only dating Dotty at first, but when I got to talk to her… well, you’ve met her. She’s awesome. She told me Dorothy liking me doesn’t take anything away from Dorothy liking her. And that’s how it works.”

Dean had to stop for a second to chew up on that revolutionary concept. But it was a lot to take in, so he just shook his head and decided he would think about it later.

“And what about if you want to date someone else?” he continued asking. “What if you meet a guy or…?”

“You mean after Dorothy threatens to make a necklace with his insides?”

Dean figured she must be joking, but the truth was she totally thought Dorothy capable of that and a lot worse.

“I’m kidding,” Jo clarified with a laugh. “She acts all tough, but deep down she’s a cuddly teddy bear.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” Dean decided.

“Anyway,” Jo continued. “I haven’t met anybody else that I can see myself dating, besides them. And if I did, I can tell you with certainty they wouldn’t have a problem with it. As long as I let them know all about it, of course.”

“Of course,” Dean repeated.

They turned off the faucet and checked if they hadn’t forgotten any plates to clean or dry. Ellen would drag them right back there by the collars if they had.

“Well, I guess that’s all,” she said, with a satisfied smile. “Let’s go back. We don’t want to keep them waiting.”

“Yeah,” Dean muttered. He watched her back for a moment before blurting out: “Hey, I’m happy for you. You deserve it.”

Jo turned around, a little surprised. But then she smiled again.

“Why, thank you,” she said. “You deserve it too.”

Dean didn’t know exactly what she meant, but she didn’t ask. He realized, with a sting of bittersweet happiness, that Jo was no longer that naïve girl with an awkward crush on him and complete uncertainty of what to do with her life. And there was no doubt in his mind that she was going to make it just fine.

Dorothy was leaning against Charlie next to the door, and putting a hand on Ellen’s arm when they came out of the kitchen.

“You’re a real mother, Mrs. Harvelle,” Dorothy was saying. “You’re a real… yeah, you’re a solid mom.”

“Why, thank you,” Ellen was saying, clearly trying to get away from her reach. “You’re… really solid, too.”

Charlie grabbed Dorothy’s hand and subtly pulled her away from Ellen.

“Excuse her,” she said. “She gets all affectionate when she’s drunk.”

“I’m not drunk,” Dorothy slurred, drunkenly. “Shut up, Red, you’ll make me look bad in front of Mrs. Harvelle. I only had… Blondie! There’s our Blondie!”

“Okay,” Jo passed and arm around Dorothy’s shoulders just as Charlie did the same on the other side. “I think it’s past time we got you to bed.”

“That’s nice,” Dorothy laughed, a toneless, loud laugh. “But I think I’m a little drunk for that… woah!”

The three girls almost stumbled on the way out, but Jo and Charlie just laughed as well and held Dorothy tighter. Ellen seemed a little scared, but she recovered fast and tossed the bar’s keys to Dean.

“Close for me, Winchester, will you?”

“You got it, Solid Mom.”

Ellen shot him a threatening look, and followed her daughter out of the bar.

Castiel approached Dean from behind and kissed him under the ear.

“Happy birthday,” he whispered in his ear.

“It really has been,” Dean muttered. “You know what would make it happier? If we took off our clothes and fucked like animals all over the pool table.”

“I’m driving,” Castiel decided. “You’re clearly too drunk for it.”

“Ah, come on,” Dean protested, though he couldn’t deny Castiel might have been right. “Ellen’s never gonna know…”

“But I will know, and I’ll never be able to look at her in the eye again,” Castiel replied, shaking his head. “Let’s go. We can fuck like animals at home.”

“Promise?”

Castiel just dragged him by the arm and reminded him to lock the bar’s door. He slid his hand inside Dean’s jacket, and for a second, Dean thought he was going to give him another hug, but it was only to take away the keys of the Impala.

“You be careful with that,” he told him. “If you scratch it, I’m filing for divorce.”

“We aren’t married,” Castiel reminded him with a laugh.

“Oh, yeah,” Dean scratched the back of his neck. “Why is that? It could be great.”

“Many things could be great,” Castiel replied, sliding on the car’s driver seat without another word. Dean staggered towards the passenger door and grabbed the handle.

He halted. He had heard another car’s motor starting at the other side of the street, but that couldn’t be possible, because everybody had left and he knew that street. He knew that at that hour of the night, after Ellen’s bar closed, there was almost no one around anymore.

But he heard it, and he saw it. The back of a red car disappearing around the dimly lit corner. It was too fast for Dean to tell if it was a Toyota Corolla, but maybe it was? He couldn’t tell for sure, but…

“Dean?” Castiel’s voice brought him back to reality. “Is everything okay?”

Dean blinked, and once again reminded himself that paranoia didn’t help anybody. Yes, maybe there was a red car parked there until a second ago, but was it really a Corolla? And there were thousands of red Corollas in the world; it couldn’t possibly the one he had thought was following them when they went to Mount Rushmore months before.

“Yeah,” he told Castiel. “Yes, everything’s fine. I’m just drunker than I thought.”

He got inside the car and took a couple of deep breaths to finish convincing himself he had seen nothing out of the ordinary.

“It’s okay,” he told Castiel. “I’m overthinking shit. I just need to go home and get into bed.”

Castiel’s worried expression melted away instantly.

“Now, there’s a plan I can get behind.”


	25. Paraphrasing

Castiel had a ritual he followed every time he finished a book.

First, he hated it. It was easy to hate it, because with time, the James Milton’s books had become an unpleasant chore, a burden he had to endure and an uphill battle against near constant writer’s block. There was a reason he spent so much time avoiding his job, a reason he stayed awake late at night staring at the words until they were nothing but ants parading on the paper, a reason he usually had to rush to finish it before the deadline instead of keeping a steady rhythm like he heard sane writers did.

He didn’t want to say he had “lost his muse” or some other poetic paraphrase like that. He knew he was lucky to even be published and he should be thankful that he could live off it, but he had written his first book in a matter of weeks. Now he called it a day if he pushed out a hundred words a day, and after the book was done, Castiel re-read it with the ugly fear that he had done a mediocre job, that he had half-assed it to please Rachel, his public, his critics, anyone other than himself.

He never wanted to write mystery novels as well. As Meg had reminded him, he used to love fantasy novels. He was a hardcore Tolkien fan and he always dreamed he could write his very own _Lord of the Rings_. But back when he had just finished college and was trying to make a name for himself, he had written a couple of detectives stories for a magazine that were good enough to catch the eye of a young agent trying to prove to her bosses that she could, too, find good authors out there. Rachel had got him a deal, April had encouraged him to write the James Milton because “they were a safe bet” and Castiel had postponed his fantasy novel for murders and clever robberies, formulaic stories he could recycle over and over when he ran out of inspiration (and he ran out of inspiration a lot). And he had been doing it for almost ten years now. He got sick to his stomach when he thought about it, so he tried not to.

He figured it was a good thing he had chosen a nom-de-plum at the beginning of his career, because that way he could look at the text and judge it more harshly, like someone else had written it. And that way, it was easier to edit. Some parts needed the surgical precision of a scalpel, others needed an axe to extract entire sections, and in some cases, entire chapters.

After he finished editing (which could be a job as exhausting, if not more, than writing the damn thing in the first place), he sat on his desk staring at his computer in utter panic, because he was completely certain he had forgotten something, that there was a turn of phrase that could be better worded or a plot twist that might have been better forshadowed. Then he panicked even more, because if that was the case, his deadline was looming closer and there wouldn’t be time to review the entire book again. Then he relaxed, because if time was up, he had everything that he could (minus the hours he’d spent watching kitten videos on the Internet) and it was out of his hand.

Having reached that stage, he started throwing away papers he had torn up in frustration, cleaning up his computer’s drive of files he no longer needed, putting books back in their shelves and returning the several cups of coffee he had drank to the kitchen. The week immediately after he finished a book and the one immediately before he started the next one were the only times Dean could stand getting inside his studio without visibly wrinkling his nose and when he was allowed to dust and bathe every surface in lemon-scented disinfectant.

Then Castiel lit on a single cigarette (a bad habit he’d caught in college and he had dropped completely except for those occasions) and called Rachel to let her know everything was ready. Rachel usually responded with utter relief, and Castiel couldn’t help to find it insulting. It was like Rachel lived on the edge, dreading the day Castiel didn’t finish his stuff on time and the publishing house dropped them like a hot potato.

“When have I ever missed a deadline?”

“You miss deadlines all the time!” Rachel accused him.

“Maybe, but when have I ever missed an important one?”

Rachel huffed and told him she would call him back after re-reading the whole thing. That usually took her a day or two, or an entire night if the deadline was too close. Usually, she changed minor things, like a word repetition Castiel hadn’t caught or inconsistencies between the dates. In rare occasions, she had indicated some parts that needed re-writing, but by the time she sent it off to the publisher, the book had been re-worked enough that the editor usually had nothing to complain about. After she received the thumbs-up, Rachel called Castiel to let him know everything was in motion and they should start choosing the fairs, interviews and events they would make to promote the book after its release date.

That part Castiel hated more than anything else.

“I don’t understand why I can’t just be a recluse writer,” he complained sometimes.

“Because you’re not that famous yet,” Rachel reminded him.

Castiel begged to differ. The last few dates, he had noticed an increase in the volume of people coming up to him to get their copies signed, and when he condescended to opening his email, he had a lot more mystery blogs asking him to give them an interview or to write an entry for them.

The problem, according to Rachel, was that he was bad at promoting things virtually. He had a Twitter and a Facebook account, but he had to change the passwords every time he tried to enter because he kept forgetting. He used them so little he couldn’t even bothered to program his computer to autocomplete them for him. And that was why he had to tour the country, promoting his book in person.

“One of these days I’m going to hire an intern to handle all those accounts,” Castiel promised.

“You already have one. It’s me,” Rachel replied. “Hey, but don’t worry about it. I arranged everything so you won’t have to leave until after San Valentine’s.”

“You surprise me,” Castiel said. “I thought after you broke up with Bartholomew, you have become disgusted with everything that involved relationships and love.”

“What can I tell you?” Rachel replied. “Deep down, I’m an idealist. That’s why I keep working with you. Speaking of work, do you know what you want to do next?”

Castiel breathed in deeply. That was typical of Rachel: the book wasn’t even officially out yet, and she was already pressuring to get back to work. He usually answered with an irritated request for to, as Dean would say, get a ladder and get off his back, but this time, there was an idea that had been running around his head for a while now. Ten years, to be exact. He was done with safe bets.

“I’ve actually been thinking about something,” Castiel said. “It’s a little different from what I usually do, so perhaps I would need to get a new pen name. Or sign it with my real name.”

“That’s… okay,” Rachel said, and the skepticism was palpable on her voice. “Tell me about it.”

Castiel opened one of his drawers, found his moleskin and read to her some of the loose ideas that had been going through his head. Rachel didn’t say anything for several seconds after he finished, so Castiel started preparing arguments in favor of this new book of his.

“I know it’s going to be a monumental work, but this is something I’ve always wanted to try my hand on and I’ve had it in the backburner for a long time,” Castiel said. “I might need an entire year to complete it, that’s why this last book ends in such a definitive note. I wouldn’t want to have James Milton’s fans waiting while I work on this. But, Rachel, it’s something I really want to do, and I wouldn’t even bring it up if I didn’t think I can complete it…”

“It could work,” Rachel interrupted him. “No, it really could, Castiel. We just need to find a selling pitch for the publisher, and I think we would be all set.”

Castiel stared at his phone, like Rachel could sense his surprise on the other end.

“Really?” he asked, both careful and hopeful. “You’re the one who always told me I should play it safe and stick to what I already knew.”

“Well, yeah, but perhaps you wouldn’t procrastinate that much if what you already know didn’t bore you so much,” she pointed out. “Perhaps it is time we try something new.”

If she had been there, Castiel would have kissed her. As she wasn’t, he could only smile like a fool and hope it sounded completely sincere when he said:

“Rachel, you’re amazing.”

“Don’t celebrate just yet. You still have two James Milton’s book in your contract,” Rachel reminded him. “We’re going to have to convince the higher-ups to wait on those and give you a new contract for this thing. They’re all about the numbers, so it’s not going to be easy.”

“I trust you completely, Rachel.”

Rachel sighed deeply, like she was already regretting what she had agreed to do. But Castiel knew she wasn’t going to back off. It was going to be a challenge for them both.

It was also going to be a challenge for Dean, but in a completely different sense. Castiel knew whatever he tried, he was going to support him and their bank account wasn’t going to just empty in the foreseeable future, but it’s still was a risk he needed to prepare his boyfriend for.

“He emerges!” Dean joked when Castiel appeared in the kitchen. “So? Did Rachel like the new book?”

“She did,” Castiel replied. He hugged Dean from behind and kissed him on the ear. It was comfortably familiar, and after what he had just decided to do, it was a consolation. “And she also liked this new idea I had.”

“Oh?” Dean stopped preparing lunch long enough to shoot him a curious look.

So Castiel leaned on the kitchen counter and explained it to him, in the same terms he had explained it to Rachel, but with even more detail and more enthusiasm. And the more he talked, the more excited he got that would actually get to work on something like that. He described scenarios and scenes he was already excited about writing, and characters and situations, and before he realized, he had been speaking for forty five minutes straight and Dean and resumed his cooking silently to not interrupt him.

“So what do you think?” Castiel asked, suddenly a bit scared about Dean’s quietness.

Dean pushed the meat on and closed the oven’s door.

“Well, the madness comes through easily,” he said. “And see, this is exactly why it’s a good thing I’m still working two jobs.”

Castiel gasped, offended, but Dean just laughed in his face and put his hands on his cheek.

“I’m joking,” he clarified. “Of course, I love that you do what you want to do. And I’m absolutely sure that you’re going to slay it.”

“And what if I don’t?” Castiel asked, the fear that he had kept away until then suddenly hitting him again. “What if people think it sucks? What if…?”

Dean shut him up with a kiss.

“That might happen,” he admitted. “I doubt it, because you’re awesome and everything you do is awesome. But even if it happens, then they can all suck it. You would have done what you know what to do, which is writing a bitching book. And that’s all that matters.”

Castiel relaxed and hugged him.

“So when are you leaving for the tour?” Dean asked.

“Oh, that’s the best part,” Castiel smiled against his boyfriend’s shoulder. “I get to stay for San Valentine this year.”

“That _is_ great,” Dean said.

That was not the enthusiastic reaction Castiel was expecting, so he backed off from the hug.

“Dean?” he asked, crooking an eyebrow. Dean lowered his eyes to stare at his shoes.

“Okay, don’t be mad,” he begged him. “I thought this was going to be like other years and you wouldn’t be in town. So I sort of… made plans already. But we can totally change them to include you.”

“Dean, it’s fine,” Castiel guaranteed, smiling at Dean’s nervousness. “Of course I’m not mad. You’re going out with Jo, Dorothy and Charlie, aren’t you?”

“Well, we can include them if you want to,” Dean rubbed the back of his neck.

Castiel titled his head, confused.

“Who are you going out with, then?”

Dean rubbed the back of his head some more.

“Meg,” he confessed finally.

“… and… Benny?”

“No. Just Meg.”

Castiel blinked at his boyfriend.

“I’m… confused,” he concluded after a few seconds.

“Meg didn’t want to do Valentines with Benny this year,” Dean explained. “Since they’ve only been dating for like, three months, she thought it’d be too soon to get each other meaningless gifts and such. Also, she doesn’t believe in Saint Valentine’s Day because it’s a completely commercial holiday designed to cash in on couple’s happiness and shame single people.”

Castiel nodded. That definitely sounded like Meg.

“So… what are you doing?”

“We thought we’d get a pizza and watch some movies,” Dean explained. “We’re having an Indiana Jones marathon. We both think middle-aged Harrison Ford is sexy.”

Castiel looked at him, and started laughing. Of course they did.

“Sounds like fun,” Castiel said. “If you want me to lock myself up in my studio and leave you two to swoon over Harrison Ford…”

“No, no, of course not,” Dean said. “You’re completely welcome to swoon with us. You know Meg loves you…” His voice trailed off as he realized what he was saying. “I mean, she loves being _around_ you,” he corrected himself, hurriedly. “She loves being… yeah… you know what I meant.”

“Of course,” Castiel replied. He didn’t think any amount of paraphrasing was going to change the facts they were all aware of, but if it made Dean feel better, he could accept it.

 

* * *

 

Meg decided she hated every single alarm clock on the earth, and she hated hers, particularly. The only reason she hadn’t destroyed it yet was because it also happened to be her cellphone. She felt around her night table for an entire minute before she found it and turned it off. And then she decided she didn’t want to get out of bed. She was too warm, too comfy…

An arm latched on her waist and pulled her closer to a firm body.

“Good morning,” Benny’s rough voice muttered in her ear.

She was just too damned happy at that very moment to move.

“I don’t want to go to work,” she moaned, while Benny made a point of making it even harder for her by peppering kisses on her neck and shoulder, his beard scrapping her skin.

“I know, I know,” he said, consoling. “But it’s your responsibility as an adult.”

“I don’t like being an adult,” Meg groaned, hiding her face in the pillow.

“Being an adult can be fun,” Benny argued. “Especially when you get to do adult things.”

He pinched Meg’s boob to illustrate what he meant, and Meg couldn’t help but to dissolve into chuckles.

“Okay, get off me,” she muttered. “I need coffee. You know I’m not in the mood until I’ve had coffee.”

Benny laughed, but he rolled away from her. Meg didn’t even attempt to move for another minute or two, and when she finally opened her eyes, Benny wasn’t in the room. She sat on the bed for a second, trying to get her thoughts in order.

It had been almost exactly three months since they’d had their first date. This was probably the longest she remembered dating someone before they ended up in bed. Well, except for Castiel, but that didn’t count because they were sixteen and there was the ever constant danger that they’d be caught by an adult. No, this was definitely the longest, and it wasn’t like they had planned it. Benny had insisted that since it wasn’t technically Valentine’s Day it didn’t count as a Valentine’s date, and he had been his usual, perfect gentleman self. But then Meg had kissed him at the building’s door and asked him to go up (again), and she had discovered he wasn’t always a perfect gentleman.

It didn’t matter, she thought with a smirk. She’d liked it, and it had definitely been worth the wait.

By the time she emerged, dressed in her scrubs and a little more awake, she found him in the kitchen, staring at the purring coffee maker like he thought he was going to explode.

“Does it always sound like that?” he asked, pointing at it with disconcert.

“I don’t know, it’s new,” Meg shrugged. “We’re just getting to know each other. But I have noticed it has some weird quirks.”

Benny looked at her like he knew she wasn’t talking about the coffee maker but couldn’t quite come up with an answer. Meg laughed in his face again and went to put some bread on the toaster.

“Well, I have noticed some weird quirks too,” Benny said in the end. “But that’s what makes it interesting. You should keep it.”

The coffee maker beeped, startling him and Meg laughed again. She seemed to be laughing a lot those days, and she truly appreciated it.

But of course there were a couple of things she still needed to get used to.

“You sure you don’t mind we don’t do Valentines?” she asked, while she poured the coffee in two cups. “I mean, I really think we blew the whole taking it slow thing last night.”

“Yes, and I have never been so glad I rushed into something,” Benny replied.

“That doesn’t really answer my question,” Meg replied, thinking they had very different ideas of what constituted rushing into things.

Benny tapped his fingers against the cup, pensively. He opened his mouth…

The toaster shouted and vomited the bread, making him jump and hit his head against the cabinet. His coffee spilled all over the floor, and Meg was too busy laughing to be mad she would have to clean it up before leaving for work. Like the perfect gentleman he was, Benny offered to help.

“Your kitchen is too small,” he complained.

“It’s big enough for someone my size,” Meg replied.

“Guess I can’t argue with that.”

“Are you calling me short?”

Benny set the mop aside and pulled Meg closer to him.

“I’m calling you cute,” he smiled before he leaned down to give her a kiss.

“Nice saving,” she said, and this time it was Benny’s turn to laugh.

“I don’t mind we don’t do Valentines,” he replied. “I don’t ever want you to feel uncomfortable with anything we do.”

The rest of the breakfast was quiet and peaceful. Mostly because what Meg really wanted to say was that she had no idea what she had done to deserve a guy like Benny, but she feared just casually commenting something like that would be a deal breaker. Then again, she had already refused to spend two out of three holidays with him, so maybe those things just were as unimportant to Benny as they were for her.

Benny finished his coffee in one gulp.

“I’ll offer you a ride to work,” he said. “But I should go home and change. I don’t even want to think about all the gossip at work if I show up with the same clothes than the day before.”

“You should implement uniforms,” Meg suggested, pointing at her scrubs. “They definitely save up a lot of time and hide the shame of what you did last night.”

Benny gave her a funny look and chuckled, but Meg didn’t understand the joke until hours later when Ava asked her what was that on her neck.

“I don’t have anything in my neck,” Meg said, rubbing it. “Do I?”

Instead of answering, Ava just lent her a pocket mirror. Meg cursed under her breath. Benny had left her with a hickie no scrubs could hide.

 

* * *

 

“What’s with the turtle neck?” was the first thing Dean asked her when she showed up at their home that Sunday.

“It’s cold and I think I might be coming down with something,” Meg lied through her teeth. “What’s with you criticizing my wardrobe choices?”

Dean lifted his hands in the air, like he did when he was trying to avoid a fight.

“Hey, it’s a free country,” he said. “Get in and get comfortable.”

“Why, thank you,” Meg rolled her eyes. She took her jacket and hanged it behind the door. “So when do you think Cas will be back?”

“Well, if everything goes as plan, I’ll be back the first week of March.”

Meg turned around, both surprised and trying to suppress the fuzzy feeling in her stomach.

“Hey!” she greeted him striding towards him. “You’re still here!”

“Did you really think I would leave for so long without saying goodbye to you?” he asked, hugging her. “Why are you wearing a turtle neck?”

Meg figured the best defense at this point was to tell the truth, but in a really sarcastic and mean tone.

“Well, it’s been a couple of days and the hickie Benny left me it’s still not fading away,” she replied. “Didn’t want you guys to think I’m cheating on you, so I’m covering up the evidence.”

Castiel’s face did something very strange. It was like he didn’t know whether to laugh or to take her seriously, and both emotions reached him at the same time, making his lips twitch at the same time he frowned.

“Nice try,” Dean intervened. “You need to take better care of yourself. Have you had your flu shot this year?”

“Oh, my God, mom, get off my case,” Meg stuck her tongue out at him.

“Kids, be nice,” Castiel intervened. “Or middle-aged Harrison Ford isn’t going to leave presents for you this year.”

The three exploded in uncontrollable laughter.

So, okay, Meg’s plan had been hanging out with Dean as friends and the fact Castiel was there threw her off a bit. She had been carefully avoiding the role of the third wheel, and now she got to play it again. But if she was being honest with herself, she never minded being the third wheel too much when it came to them.

“Why are you sitting there?”

“This is the couch, Dean-o,” Meg rolled her eyes. “It’s right in front of the TV, so it’s comfortable to sit here to watch it…”

“No, I mean, why are you sitting on the side?” Dean insisted. “You always sit in the middle.”

Meg didn’t know how to explain out loud she had assumed Castiel and Dean would cuddle (being Valentine’s Day and all) and she didn’t want to get in the way. But that’d have been a long winded explanation she was saved from by Castiel.

“So can I sit in the middle this time?” he asked, and immediately did exactly that.

Dean looked at them like he also wanted to call them “kids”, but he just tossed the popcorn bowl on Castiel’s lap and sat at the other end of the couch.

“This is actually quite comfortable,” Castiel commented as Dean turned on the DVD player.

“Well, of course you love to sit in the middle,” Meg said, leaning over to steal some popcorn from the bowl. “Much like Harrison Ford, you want to get all the bitches.”

“Projecting much?” Dean joked.

Meg threw popcorn at him, and it took another fifteen minutes until they stopped fighting and another five until Castiel could stop laughing hysterically so they could watch the movie. Meg would later feel slightly guilty that she didn’t spend that day with Benny, but that didn’t stop her from considering it the best Valentine’s Day ever.


	26. U-Turn

Sometime during _The Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls_ , they all fell asleep. Dean woke up several minutes later. The TV screen had gone blue, and he was glad for it because, damn, those aliens were stupid and he had no desire to see them again. He also realized Castiel was sleeping with his head on his shoulder, which would have been a lot cuter if he hadn’t drooled all over it. Meg was also asleep, with her head in the couch’s armrest and her feet on Castiel’s lap. She woke with a groan when Dean put a hand on her leg to gently shake her.

“What time is it?” she muttered.

“Half-past one,” Dean replied. He pushed Castiel a little, who moved only to rest his head on the couch’s back. Man, he was just like a cat, Dean could swear.

Meg sat up and stretched her arms over her head.

“Well, this has been fun, but I have to go home,” she yawned. “Where the hell are my shoes?”

While she searched for them, Dean got up to get her jacket for her. At first he didn’t notice anything unusual: there were some pellets falling outside, the street was mostly dark and Meg’s Beetle was parked right at the entry. All perfectly normal.

But then he noticed it: right across the street, there was another car he _knew_ didn’t belong to any of their neighbors. It was too dark to make out its color, but judging by the shape and size of it, he could have sworn under oath that it was a Corolla.

He didn’t react for a second or two. All his trying to rationalize his fears away, all his attempts at believing it was just a coincidence he kept seeing that car came crushing down as he reached one conclusion than, in view of the circumstances, didn’t seem far-fetched: the guy who owned that car had been the one that vandalized Meg’s apartment and sabotaged her Beetle over Thanksgiving. It had to be.

“Uh, Meg?” he asked. “What kind of car does Benny drive?”

Meg finished putting on her boots and looked at him like he was asking a very complicated mathematical question she didn’t have the brain power to solve.

“A pickup truck,” she said. “You know, to deliver the furniture from his store and stuff.”

“Right,” Dean said. Of course, it had been stupid to ask that, but he couldn’t be too careful. He hesitated with Meg’s jacket in his hand. “Look, it’s late,” he said, when Meg opened her mouth, obviously to ask her for it. “Why don’t you stay over? I can have your room ready in a couple of minutes.”

“That’s tempting, but I gotta work tomorrow,” Meg rubbed her eyes. “And it’s already late, so I’ll be tired and…”

“Please, stay,” Dean insisted, and he must have sounded a little bit desperate, because Meg was taken aback and even Castiel opened one eye to look at them. “It’s just… you can go to sleep faster if you stay,” Dean tried to explain himself, clumsily. “And we can have breakfast together tomorrow morning. I’ll make pancakes.”

Meg clicked her tongue, like Dean was making an inarguable point.

“Well, when you put it like that, I guess there’s nothing wrong with me wearing the old scrubs I keep in my locker.”

“That’s more like it,” Dean smiled.

And he must have been convincing enough, because Meg stopped looking at him like he was insane. He handed her the fresh sheets and acted like nothing was going on until she declared she was insanely tired, wish him goodnight and closed the door of her room.

Dean returned to the living room immediately.

“Well, that was…” Castiel started, but stopped talking when Dean walked right past him, opened the door and launched himself towards the street.

“Hey, hey!” he screamed, but it was too late: Corolla guy saw him coming, started the engine and sped up down the street way far too fast for his presence there to be a product of Dean’s paranoid imagination. “Dammit, I didn’t catch the plate number!” he complained and turned to Castiel, who was looking at him from the porch like he was insane. “Did you catch the plate number?”

“No,” Castiel said. Worry began to creep up on his expression. “Dean, who was that guy? What’s going on?”

Dean asked him to come inside and made sure to latch the door before he explained everything to him: how he had seen that car more than once around wherever Meg was, how he was convinced it wasn’t a coincidence anymore, how he believed it was connected to the damage her apartment had suffered and how he was calling Jody right now to tell her all about it.

“Dean, Dean, stop,” Castiel said, putting a hand on his forearm when Dean pulled out the cellphone from his pocket. “It’s late. We don’t have any pertinent information about this person. You can’t wake Jody up just because you have a hunch.”

Dean realized he must have been rambling all that time, and took a deep breath to calm down. His pulse was rushing and his mind was telling him to take the Impala and drive it around the block a couple of times, just to see if that asshole hadn’t parked somewhere near again.

“I don’t think he’ll come back tonight,” Castiel said, almost as if he could read his mind. “You must have given him quite a fright.”

“You do believe me, right?”

“Of course I do,” Castiel said, and his firm tone and the way he kept his eyes fixed on Dean’s face indicated he actually meant that. “All red cars look alike to me, but if you say it’s the same one, I wholeheartedly believe you.”

“Then we gotta tell Jody…”

“Yes, we should,” Castiel interrupted him. “But there’s one other person we should probably talk to first.”

This time he was looking over Dean’s shoulder.

Meg was standing in her bedroom’s door, wearing the oversized shirt Dean had lent her to use as a sleeping gown.

“What’s going on?”

 

* * *

 

Castiel thought making tea would somehow make the whole situation better. It didn’t.

“You okay?”

Meg snapped out from staring at the dark liquid in her cup and lifted her eyes at Dean.

“Yeah,” she muttered. “Yeah, I just… ugh.”

She hid her face on her hands to collect herself for a second. The awful feeling in her stomach she’d had when she walked into her apartment that afternoon, when she saw those words scribbled on the wall, were returning now in full force. She woke up every morning and saw the beautiful murals Benny had painted for her, but the words still flashed behind her eyelids when she thought about it.

After a few deep breaths, she looked up. Dean was staring at her, fists clenched and eyes downcast. Castiel had a hand over his shoulder, perhaps to stop him from trying to reach out for her.

“Why didn’t you tell me about this before?”

She didn’t mean to accuse him or anything like that, but the guilt invaded Dean’s face anyway.

“I just… I didn’t want you to…”

“I think we’ve established by now Dean has a tendency to be overprotective to a fault,” Castiel intervened. “I’m sure he kept silence in good faith, because he didn’t want to alarm you without reason.”

“Yeah, I get that,” Meg said. She shook her head. Now was not the time to look scared and confirm to Dean it was better not to tell her. “Okay, now I know about it. I can be on the lookout.”

“Maybe you should take a couple of days,” Dean began suggesting. “Tell Benny to take you somewhere…”

“I can’t do that,” Meg interrupted him. “Look, I don’t know what this guy’s problem is with me, but I’m not going to let him scare me from living my life. And until he does something other than being a creep, I don’t think Jody and Donna can arrest him.”

Dean twisted his mouth and Castiel nodded gravely, like they understood she had a good point by they didn’t necessarily like it.

“I’ll be careful,” she continued. “I’ll always be around people, I’ll tell Benny about him. There’s not much else we can really do.”

“Okay,” Castiel accepted. He stretched a hand out to her, and Dean did the same. “But you do know you’re not alone, right? You can count on us for anything.”

“I do know that,” Meg said, and she tried to smile. “Thank you, guys.”

 

* * *

 

If he was being completely honest, Castiel would have to admit that he did enjoy the first few days of every promotional trip. It was nice to break out of the monotony of sitting in his studio and confronting the white page on daily basis. Of course, since he usually travelled with Rachel and she just wouldn’t let up, he still had to confront the white page on daily basis, but at least the context of a hotel room made it a little different.

He also liked the movement. Rachel usually got sick on airplanes, so she took a pill and slept the entire time, so Castiel could relax and watch the clouds passing by out of the window. If they were travelling by bus or rented a car, he also enjoyed watching the changing scenery. Every time they passed by a small town in the middle of nowhere that wasn’t in their itinerary, Castiel tried to convince Rachel to stop and take a picture in the local tourist’s trap. It had worked. A couple of times.

But everything in between got old really fast. He didn’t like answering the same questions over and over about where he got his ideas (“From his head” wasn’t, apparently, a satisfactory answer for interviewers) and what did he owe his success to (“Working every day and a supporting boyfriend” was also a pretty boring answer, but it wasn’t Castiel’s fault that it was the truth).

He enjoyed meeting his readers, but lately they had grown so great in number than the queue in front of his table was longer than anyone could expect. So he could only dedicate a few minutes to each, the time it took for him to ask them their name, sign their copy of his book and maybe take a picture with them (even though Rachel frowned upon such occasions, because they held the queue). Castiel tried to keep it together for as long as he could, but usually, but after a few hours, his hand got all rigid, he started sweating like a pig even if it was the middle of winter, and the faces in front of him started to become one big blur.

“You’re only human and these things are always crowded,” Rachel told him when he inevitably became too tired or too sick to keep going. “They understand.”

Castiel usually didn’t answer, because he was too physically exhausted to formulate an answer, yes. But also because he felt awful for all the people who were left waiting outside of the bookstore or the fair, people who came to see him and didn’t have the chance to. He felt like he had failed them, somehow, and it didn’t matter how much Rachel tried to justify it, he still wanted to kick himself for it.

So he tried to push himself further, and that fed into his exhaustion. By the end of the third day, he was homesick and desperate for returning to the monotony of his studio.

Rachel knew this, so to avoid him having a nervous breakdown, she agreed with the publishing house that Castiel would make more trips, but in a shorter amount of time. So while other writers had tours that lasted entire months, Castiel only had to survive two weeks each time. Rachel managed to also somehow prepare everything so they would start locally (the first tour usually covered cities like Salt Lake City, Denver and Minneapolis) before they went further away to both coasts around the summer. In Castiel’s opinion, it worked pretty well. At least he could resist the impulse to tear out his own eyes for longer.

This time, he resisted until the fifth day before he had to take a break in the middle of the signing to call Dean.

“I can’t do this anymore.”

“Yes, you can,” Dean answered patiently.

Castiel could hear the tinkling of his tools and the roaring of motors in the background, and he had to appreciate that Dean took the time to answer his phone in the middle of a workday. Though, technically, Castiel was calling him in the middle of _his_ workday, so there was that too.

“Dean, I’m dying,” Castiel complained. “My wrist hurts so much. My hand’s going to fall down. I won’t be able to write again…”

“Don’t be over dramatic,” Dean said, and Castiel could almost hear him holding back the laughter. “Just call Meg and ask her to recommend you something to prevent carpal tunnel. You should be fine.”

“Yes, yes, good idea,” Castiel said. It didn’t occur to him until after he had hanged up that Dean probably said that to keep him off his back.

He called Meg anyway.

“Take small breaks now and then,” Meg recommended him. “Stretch your hand against something flat and you should be fine. Is that all? We have a bit of a crisis here… no, Mr. Allen! Don’t throw that!”

“Sorry,” Castiel muttered. “I’ll call you and Dean tonight, I’ll just…”

“Yeah, sure,” Meg said hurriedly. “Uh… you do that…” There was a loud crash at the other end of the line and Meg cursed under her breath. “Gotta go. Bye, Clarence.”

“Good…” The communication ended even before he could finish the word. “… bye.”

Rachel popped her head into the back of the bookstore where Castiel was hiding.

“You done?” she asked him. “There’s tons of people waiting.”

Castiel took a deep breath. Ten more days, he told himself. He only needed to hang on for ten more days and then he could go home and hug Meg. And Dean. He could hug them both. He missed them.

“I’ll be right there.”

So he had two more hours of smiling and signing and trying to ignore the dirty looks from the bookstore’s clients who just wanted to buy a book that particular day and had to put up with fans of whoever that writer was getting all up in his personal space. If it were them, Castiel would also feel totally frustrated. The worst of them all was a red-headed young man who hanged around the history section and kept glaring in Castiel’s direction. He wouldn’t have noticed if the boy hadn’t stuck around for so long; he must have been in the bookstore for at least two hours before the signing ended. In a couple of occasions, Castiel was pretty certain he wanted to get close to his table to tell him something, but the human cordon of fans prevented him from doing so.

And he probably wouldn’t have remembered the kid if he hadn’t seen him again in Bismark. This time he stood in line with Castiel’s book and handed it for him to sign without saying a word.

“Who should I make this to?” Castiel asked, politely.

“My sister,” the young man said. “Her name’s Marin.”

His voice sounded hollow and when Castiel looked up, he noticed the boy was a little pale.

“Are you feeling okay?” he asked.

“I’m fine,” the boy said, pulling from the collar of his shirt. “You’re Castiel Novak, right?”

Castiel startled. Not many fans knew his real name, and the ones who did still call him “James” or “Mr. Milton.”

“Uh, yes, that would be me,” he said, and he tried to joke: “Don’t tell anybody, though. It’s my civilian identity.”

The guy smiled. Actually, “smile” was too strong a word: it was more like he twisted his mouth trying to simulate a smile, and the result was a grimace similar to what an alien or a robot with no enough data thought a human smile might look like. It was a bit eerie, but Castiel figured he was no one to judge people for how their faces were.

“I’m a friend of Meg’s,” the boy continued. “From way back. She talked about you a lot.”

“Oh, that’s great,” Castiel said, although he was a little surprised. The boy seemed a little young to have hanged out with Meg at some point, but he guessed she had met people from all walks of life. “Why don’t you tell me your name so I’ll tell her I saw you? Are you sure you’re feeling okay?”

“Yes, I’m fine,” the boy said. “It’s just… too much people in here.”

“Yes, that happens to me too,” Castiel said, closing the signed book. “You should get some water…”

“I’ll do that,” the boy snatched the book from him and disappeared amongst the crowd before Castiel could add anything else or ask him for his name again. The guards at the bookstore entry gave the kid a sideways glance as he passed them by.

It was a strange encounter, but then again, as far as strange encounters during book signing tours went, it didn’t even make it to the top ten. However, Castiel couldn’t keep it out of his mind. Something about the encounter just rang odd to him.

“That’s because you’re tired and paranoid,” Rachel told him. She was driving the rent car and not paying attention to Castiel’s ramblings about the redheaded boy.

“Perhaps it’s that,” Castiel admitted. “But he did seem to be in a rush, like he was nervous about something…”

“Maybe he was,” Rachel shrugged. “Look, forget about it. We’ll be in Fargo in about twenty minutes. We can stop by that park you liked last time we went there before we continue to Minneapolis.”

The perspective was incredibly nice. Castiel took out his tablet and entertained himself for a while coming up with character’s names and description of places far away. That book that had started with nothing but a vague idea had already sparked several plots and subplots. It was hard to even choose which ones he should include. Maybe he could leave others for other books, spin-offs of some kind…

“Goddammit,” Rachel muttered, breaking his concentration. “Just move along.”

She rolled down the window and stuck her hand out to signal the car behind them to pass them by. Castiel hadn’t even noticed they were so close, but when he looked up to the rearview mirror, two things became immediately clear: the car was far too close… and it was a red Corolla.

He barely had time to panic or shout “Be careful!” at Rachel. The car charged against them, colliding against their back and forcing Rachel to hit the brakes.

“What the…?”

The car went backwards and then passed them by, only to make a brusque U-turn, coming directly at them. In that split second, Castiel thought he saw a familiar face behind the wheel.

Rachel reacted quickly. She spun the wheel so it was her side of the rent car that was facing the oncoming Corolla, and tried to accelerate to get out of the way.

It wasn’t fast enough. The Corolla crashed against them. Castiel was deafened by the din of broken glass and twisted metal. Rachel was shouting something, but he couldn’t hear or understand what it was, except that the car was rolling out of the road and they were jumping violently, with the backseat completely destroyed. There were other sounds, like explosions or fireworks behind them, and a sharp pain in his left shoulders that made him howl.

The car halted, perhaps because Rachel was lying limp against the wheel and had stopped stepping on the accelerator. Her blonde hair was sticky and stained with red. Castiel’s head was spinning, and when he tried to stretch her hands towards her, it was like every bone in his arm started screaming. A warm thick substance was dripping down his arm, and he realized, with a little surprise, that he was bleeding from his shoulder.

Inside his pocket, there was the consoling weight of his cellphone, but he needed to act quickly. His vision was blurry and there were ugly black spots in it. He was going to pass out at any second. His hands were shaking (he was pretty certain all of him was shaking), and with only one hand available, it was even harder to tap the screen.

9… where would the Corolla and its driver be by now?... 1… oh, God, Dean and Meg, they needed to know… 1… no, he couldn’t pass out now, he had to…

“What’s your emergency?” the operator asked, but Castiel wasn’t awake to hear him.


	27. Absolute Trust

Memory was a strange thing. Dean would never remember the reason for it, but that noon, he was in a particularly good mood. Perhaps because he was already thinking about the burger he was going to it during his break. Perhaps Castiel call’s that morning before he left for Minneapolis had brightened his day. Perhaps Meg texting she would be at the bar sans Benny that night gave him something to look forward to.

Whatever the case, he was humming to himself while he finished fixing the engine in front of him. Yeah, they were having a sunny yet cool day, almost like a prelude of spring, and nothing could really ruin it for him.

And then his cellphone had to go and ring with an unknown number.

“Am I talking to Mr. Winchester?” a female voice said on the other side.

“Well, Mr. Winchester was my father,” Dean said, so happy about everything he didn’t even realize how grave the woman’s voice sounded. “I’m Dean. What can I do you for?”

“I’m calling you because you’re Mr. Castiel Novak’s emergency contact…”

And just like that, Dean’s day was ruined. Later he wouldn’t be able to recall the exact words the woman used, but their meaning would forever be imprinted on his mind: something horrible had happened to Cas. He was in a hospital, and Dean was at a three hour drive away. Castiel was in surgery, and Dean was standing in the middle of the workshop, feeling like it was unnatural that the sky hadn’t started falling apart above his head. For a terrifying second or two, Dean had no idea what to do, so he just stayed there, paralyzed, not even aware that the call had ended and now he had to do _something_.

“Dean?” Bobby’s voice snapped him back to reality. “Dean, are you okay, kid?”

No, Dean was tempted to say. He wasn’t okay, and if he lost Castiel, nothing would ever be okay again.

 

* * *

 

He didn’t remember calling Meg on his way home, but he must have had, because by the time he arrived there to look for his insurance information (they were in the first drawer of his nighttime table, and he had to bring clothes, too, because he didn’t know how long he was going to stay in Fargo, and…), Meg was already there. She bolted out of the pickup truck parked in front of the house and stopped short of tackling Dean to the ground when she ran towards him. Dean opened his arms, and without thinking too much about it, he squeezed her tight against him, sinking his nose in her hair. It helped him contain his sudden need to bawl forever.

“What the hell happened?” Meg asked, when Dean let go of her a little.

“I don’t know,” Dean shook his head. “I don’t know, there was some sort of car accident, and I don’t… Meg, I can’t… I can’t do this…”

“Okay, okay,” Meg said. She took a deep breath, and Dean saw the tears caught in her eyelashes. She was holding herself back just as much as he was. “Go inside. Get whatever you need. I’m coming with you.”

In any other occasion, Dean would have argued that wasn’t necessary, that he could handle it on his own. Except that he couldn’t handle this, there was no way he could, and hearing Meg saying that was a supreme relief. He wasn’t alone in this.

And just as soon as he thought, he realized there was a bunch of people he needed to tell about this.

“I gotta call Naomi,” he muttered. “And Hael, and… they’re going to want to come too…”

“Go inside and get your stuff,” Meg insisted, firmly but with calm. “We’ll decide what to do on the way there.”

Dean did what she said, because it was much easier than to think about it all on his own. When he returned, he realized Benny was there too. He hadn’t even seen him before. In that strange way that memory worked, he suddenly remember it was Saturday, and Meg’s day off. He had probably interrupted a date of some kind.

Benny and Meg exchanged a quick hug and then Meg strode back towards Dean.

“Benny’s going to pick Naomi and Hael up and take them to the hospital,” she notified them. “All we gotta do is call them and tell them to be ready.”

“Okay,” Dean breathed out, relief. The keys of the car were scratching the palm of his hand from how tight he was holding on to them. “Let’s just… let’s go…”

“Dean…” Meg started.

Dean didn’t listen. He opened the car’s door and got inside. His hands were trembling, and he had to try once or twice before he could insert the key in the contact. The engine let out a couple of strangled coughs, and then died. Dean let out a cry of frustration and hit the wheel with an open palm. Strangely, that helped, so he did it again. And again. And again. And he didn’t have to think about the possibility of Castiel dying in an operating table; he didn’t have to think about what an awful life he would have to spend without him. He just had to focus on the pain in his palm, and the stupid car that wouldn’t start, and…

Meg’s hand gently came to rest in his forearm and stopped him.

“Do you want me to drive?” she asked. Her voice sounded strange, like she too was at the edge of breaking, but holding herself together much better than he was. “I’ll drive and you’ll call Naomi, okay?”

Dean had to take a couple of breaths before he could speak:

“Yeah,” he muttered. “Yeah, okay. Let’s do that.”

 

* * *

 

The road in front of her didn’t even look real. Or maybe it was Meg who didn’t feel real. She felt like she was in a dream, an ethereal realm away from everything that would melt away and vanish at any second. It was like the texture of the wheel between her fingers, the road in front of her and Dean’s agitated voice in the passenger seat could vanish just like that and leave her stranded on a limbo of nothingness.

Or maybe she would wake up. Waking up would be awesome too.

“I don’t know, Naomi, I don’t… we’re not even there yet!” Dean was shouting on the phone. “Look, if I have any news on the way, I will call you right away, I swear. You just… just go with Benny, okay? He’s a friend, he has my absolute trust. He’ll bring you to the hospital as fast as he can. Okay. Okay, yes. Yes. I’ll try. I’m sorry too. Goodbye, Naomi.”

He finished speaking, and threw his cellphone on the dashboard like it was to blame for all of this before burying his face in his hands for several moments. Meg wanted to tell him something, she just didn’t know what. And she wasn’t sure she could do it without giving in to the hollowness in her chest that threatened to swallow her up.

“Can’t you go any faster?”

“I’m going ten miles over the speed limit,” Meg said. That was a lie: she was actually going twenty miles over the speed limit. “Look, we’re not going to help Cas by getting stopped by the police or having an accident ourselves. So just… just…”

The hollowness in her chest grew a little wider, so she went quiet. The truth was there wasn’t much at all they could do to help Cas, even if they got there before he came out of surgery. Because he was going to come out of it. Meg refused to run any other scenario in her head. Because this wasn’t happening, this couldn’t be happening, and she refused to believe it was. If she accepted it, she would start crying nonstop and it was enough with one of them being at the edge of complete breakdown.

Dean threw his head back against the seat and stayed so quiet and so still Meg thought for a second he had fallen asleep.

“I’m sorry,” he muttered. “I’m sorry, I just…”

“I know,” she told him. Without taking her eyes off the road, she offered him her hand, and he grabbed with so much strength she could almost hear it crack. It didn’t matter. “I know. Don’t worry about it.”

They stayed in silence once more, and then Meg chuckled. Dean looked at her like she had lost her mind, which, in view of the circumstances was a complete valid opinion.

“So… Benny has your absolute trust now, huh?”

Dean made a sad attempt at a smile.

“Yeah,” he muttered. “Strange who we come to trust in a moment of crisis.”

He didn’t let go of her hand for the rest of the trip. At the speed Meg was going, they made it to Fargo in two and a half hours. It was the longest road trip of their lives.

 

* * *

 

There was complication at the hospital entry, because there were a couple of tabloid journalist who got there before they did and tried to convince the hospital staff they were Castiel’s relatives to get information about his state. Luckily the deputy sheriff kicked them out with far more consideration than they deserved and she would have done the same with Meg and Dean if Rachel hadn’t been awake by then to confirm they were actually who they claimed to be.

“What the hell happened?” were Meg’s first words, because she was still wrapping her head around it all. Being there, in the hospital, seeing Rachel’s bruised face and the bandages around her head, made it all more real and far more terrible. But she still refused to let her brain sink in the desperation creeping up her stomach.

“A guy went nuts and tried to kill us,” Rachel replied. “Like I told the sheriff, he had it out for us. I hit my head and got a concussion trying to get out of the way of the bullets he fired at us. He was insane.”

She was scared and shocked, but also clearly furious, like she was ready to rip the bandage off her head and go after the guy herself. Meg figured she would feel the same once she knew Castiel had come out of the surgery okay.

But something about the attack’s description rang an unfortunate bell in the back of her head. It had been destructive and senseless, and it had been designed to take out something of hers. First her apartment, then her car (if Dean’s suspicions were correct all along), and now her dearest friend.

“Did this asshole drive a red Corolla?”

“Well, it was definitely red,” Rachel said, frowning.

Deputy Sheriff Nickerson stood up.

“Do you know something about this?”

Meg was too shook to explain it to her properly, so she just gave her Sheriff Mills number and got out of the room. Then out of the goddamn hospital, because suddenly the walls were closing in and the ceiling was coming down to squash her. And honestly, perhaps she should have stayed there and let it.

 

* * *

 

Dean was sitting on the floor right outside the OR, and he felt sorry for the asshole who tried to tell him to move. There had been a couple of nurses who had tried to indicate him the way to the waiting area, but one single glare had been enough for them to go on their way without another word. He was staying there until someone told him what was going on with Cas, until a doctor came out of that door and told him what was going on. Or until he couldn’t take it anymore and he started banging the door demanding they let him in. Whatever happened first.

A cup of coffee floated in front of his face. He looked up to see Meg, who was carrying another one for herself. Without a word, she sat down right next to him and they both sipped their cups in the most absolute silence.

“Do they always do this?” Dean asked. “Keep you waiting like this?”

“They won’t say anything until they have something to say,” she told him. “The fact they’re still working on him means they’re still trying to save him. In this case, no news really is good news.”

That didn’t really help with Dean’s anxiety, so he changed the topic.

“How’s Rachel?”

“She has an ugly concussion, but she remembers her own name, so that’s a good sign,” Meg told him. “She should be fine.”

She started drawing circles around her cup, and then added in a low tone:

“I don’t think the guy was going after her.”

“What do you mean?”

Meg’s voice kept steady while she explained it to him, right up until the end when she started to break.

“Don’t you see?” she said. She sounded like she was trying her damnest not to drown in her own tears, and the tears were winning. “It’s my fault. If I hadn’t walked back into Castiel’s life…”

Dean wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her closer to him again. He couldn’t hear anymore.

“Then it’s my fault too,” he muttered. “I didn’t even think the guy would come after him. If I had warned you both before, maybe…”

It was too painful to go on. Meg didn’t answer, but she kept quietly weeping against Dean’s neck. It was like a dam had broken and now all her fear, all her anger, was flowing out uncontrollably. Dean closed his eyes and grazed Meg’s hair with his lips. He didn’t blame her, of course. There was no one to blame but that asshole.

“If I get my hands on him, he’s dead,” he said.

“Get in line,” Meg groaned. And she managed to sound threatening even though it was so obvious she was devastated. Dean almost wanted to laugh, but out of his throat only came out a sad chuckle that sounded more like a whine.

They stayed there for a long time. Dean didn’t know exactly how much, but his arm had gone numb by the time they heard footsteps coming at them. He looked up to see Hael running towards them, her long black hair a mess and her eyes red and puffy.

“Where is he?” she asked, not caring if her voice was a bit too loud for hospital standards. “What happened?!”

Dean stood up to contain her in another hug. Naomi came behind her daughter. Her eyes were red too, but she kept her stern face as she walked towards them.

“Hael, dear,” she told her, putting a hand on her shoulder. “Please don’t scream. We’ll… we’ll find out soon enough, you’ll see.”

There wasn’t a single trace of firmness her voice, even as she tried to behave with her usual poise.

Benny was standing behind them, a little further than all of them. Meg wiped her eyes before she strode towards him and let him embrace her. Dean thought he heard him mumbling “I’m sorry”, but he couldn’t be sure.

“Look, they’re still working on him, which is good, because it means they’re still trying to save him,” Dean said. “No news is good news in this case, right?”

“I’d rather have news by now,” Hael commented.

Dean couldn’t agree more.

 

* * *

 

Meg was sleeping on a shoulder. It was a nice, comfortable shoulder that smelled like leather and shaving cream. She snuggled closer to it, only to feel the weight of a head falling on top of hers. There were fingers intertwined with hers and a soft, warm breathing over her skin.

It was nice, and familiar, and honestly, she could have stayed there forever. She really appreciated everything Benny had done for them, and it was so important that he had offered himself to…

… go back and fetch clothes for her.

She opened her eyes just as the doors of the OR burst open.

“Dean!” she called him, shaking him.

Dean stood up so fast he almost knock Meg down, but she managed to stand up as well, only to see the stretcher being pushed away from them without even catching a glimpse of the person on top of it. Nurses and doctors with exhausted expressions were coming out, and one of them came directly to them.

“Castiel Novak’s family?”

“That’s us,” Dean said, grabbing Meg’s hand.

“What’s going on?” Meg asked. “I’m a nurse, so you can just tell me.”

Naomi and Hael appeared around the corner, as eager to hear what the doctor had to say as them.

“Well, he suffered from multiple trauma as a consequence of the crash,” the doctor explained. “He had several fractured ribs, but no internal bleeding and as far as we can tell, no brain injuries. He lost a significant amount of blood and his left shoulder was completely shattered, but we held it in place with a bone plate. We feared his hip may have been broken too, but it wasn’t the case and he won’t lose any mobility from the waist down.”

“What does that mean?” Dean demanded to know.

Meg felt like an enormous weight had been lifted from her shoulders.

“He’s going to be okay,” she breathed.

“With a lot of rest and physical therapy, yes,” the doctor said. “He’ll need to stay here for observation during a couple of days, but afterwards you can take him home.”

“Oh, thank God!” Naomi exclaimed, covering her mouth with both hands. It was the most emotional Meg had seen her get.

“Thank you, doctor,” Hael said, grabbing the guy’s hand and at the edge of tears. “Thank you so much.”

The doctor seemed flattered that someone remembered to thank him and not God.

“I’m just doing my job,” he said, covering Hael’s hand with his. “He’s still going to be asleep for some hours, but I’m sure you all want to see him now.”

Naomi and Hael immediately went to find out what room he was in, but when Meg tried to follow them, she realized Dean wasn’t moving.

“Dean?”

“He’s going to be okay,” he muttered, like he couldn’t quite believe those words.

“Yes,” Meg assured him. “He’s going to be just fine.”

“He’s going to be okay!” Dean repeated, a little louder.

Before Meg could answer, Dean lifted her from the ground and spun around with her, laughing as happy as a child. Meg hanged onto his shoulders for balance, laughing as well before Dean’s lisp crashed against hers for a second before he squeezed her against him again.

“He’s going to be okay,” he repeated, like it was a mantra.

And just like that, Meg knew the nightmare was over.


	28. Good Things Do Happen

“… you were probably one of the best things that ever happened to me when I didn’t really believe good things could happen,” someone was saying. “Just thought you needed to know.”

It was Meg’s voice. Castiel would recognize it anywhere, even between that darkness he was floating in, numb and happy and far away.

“You’re always going to be my first,” he commented, although he wasn’t sure if he said the words out loud or not. “Nothing will ever change that.”

He had the impression something had happened, something bad, but he was resting so peacefully now it was hard to focus on it. He would think about it later. Right now, he just wanted to keep on sleeping.

 

* * *

 

When he opened his eyes again, every inch of his body ached, but that wasn’t the first thing he noticed. It was the ceiling, simply because it wasn’t his ceiling. His ceiling was beige; Dean and him had chosen that color because it made the room cozier. Dean had complained it was the kind of color boring old married couples chose, but he had gone ahead with it anyway. Because deep down, Dean had always wanted them to be an old married couple.

The ceiling Castiel was staring at was white and sterile. It wasn’t his, the thin mattress he was lying in wasn’t his, and his boyfriend wasn’t cuddling with him like he did in the mornings when he tried to convince him to stay in bed instead of going running. Mainly because the bed was incredible small as it was, so Dean wouldn’t fit in it anyway, but Castiel didn’t like waking up like that and he immediately hated the bed and the ceiling.

But as soon as he moved his neck a little, things got a little better, because Dean was there after all. He was sleeping in a very uncomfortable position in the chair next to his bed, snoring slightly. He was unshaven and his clothes were all creased, like he had slept in them, but for the rest, he looked fine. Castiel wanted to stretch his hand and touch him, but his left arm was completely immobilized and he couldn’t turn over because his entire torso was covered in a cast.

Luckily for him, Dean’s sleep was as light as ever. He jolted awake the moment Castiel moved and looked at him for a moment, surprised. Then an immense relief invaded his features as he leaned over to touch his good arm.

“Hey,” he greeted him. “How do you feel?”

“Do you remember that time we were in our sophomore year and you hit on a girl and his boyfriend threatened to beat you and you dragged me into the fight for some reason?” Castiel said. “This is like that, but worse.”

Dean chuckled, and leaned even closer to kiss him on the cheek. It was a gesture so delicate one might think Castiel was about to fall apart. Which, given the circumstances, was an accurate assumption.

“Oh, man, I’m so glad you’re okay,” he commented.

“I’m glad to be okay, too,” Castiel smiled. “It’s not every day you get ambushed by…”

And just like that, all the memories of why he was there came flooding back into his mind. He tried to sit up, but of course his body was collaborating with that.

“Meg!” he exclaimed. “Where’s Meg? The guy with the…”

“We know,” Dean said, putting a hand on his shoulder to gently keep him in place. “I mean, we don’t know who the guy is or what’s his problem with Meg is yet, but we know it was him. Sheriff Nickerson is working with Jody and Donna. They think he couldn’t have gone that far with his car half destroyed after crashing into you guys.”

That added another worry to Castiel’s list.

“Rachel?”

“She’s fine,” Dean clarified. “Angry as hell and already requesting fans to get off your case and let you rest. I’m guessing she’s going to let you not write for a couple of weeks after this.”

That was a relief, but that didn’t answer Castiel’s original question.

“Meg?” he insisted.

“In the motel, with your mom and your sister,” Dean said. “I know, it’s weird,” he added when Castiel grimaced. “She stayed here all night, and I had to pry her away and beg her to get some rest. She blames herself for what happened.”

“That’s completely ridiculous.”

“Well, I think she would love to hear that directly from you.”

Castiel tilted his head. If everybody was staying at a motel, how come Dean looked so scruffy?

“Where did you sleep?”

Dean scratched the back of his neck, like he did when he had been caught in a lie.

“Okay, don’t tell her,” he begged. “I said I was going to the motel too, but I slept in the Impala in front of the hospital. Well, sleep might be too strong a word. More like I slumbered and half hoped the asshole that did this to you would show up so I could give him a piece of my mind.”

Castiel wanted to laugh and be mad at him for risking his life that way at the same time. He chose to joke.

“I take it that didn’t happen.”

“Well, I haven’t been charged with homicide yet, so…”

Castiel closed his eyes, reveling in the simple fact that he was alive, and the people he loved were all alive, before he opened them again.

“Call them,” he said. “Meg and the sheriff. I think I have an idea how to track this guy.”

 

* * *

 

If he was right (and Castiel was pretty confident he was), then the strange fan who wanted him to dedicate the book to his sister was somehow involved in all of it. As soon as the name “Marin” came out of Castiel’s lips, everything about the last few months started making sense to Meg.

“Oh, my God,” she muttered, covering her eyes for a second. “Oh, my God, I know who he is. I know why he did it.”

Marin had a brother, Thomas. She had told Meg about him because she thought it was funny both their brothers had the same name. She told her he had bipolar disorder, like hers, but his wasn’t as severe and he could control it with meds and go to college. It explained everything. It explained why he had targeted Meg, and why the attacks had been months apart: if he was off his meds, he would have alternated periods of aggression with severe depression in between. He was probably in a manic state when he had tried to kill Castiel. The way he saw it, Marin dying had been Meg’s fault, so it was only fair he took out someone important to Meg in turn.

“So we have a wacko on the loose,” Sheriff Nickerson said.

“He’s not a wacko,” Meg corrected her, perhaps a little too sharply, because the sheriff crooked an eyebrow at her. “He just needs help, okay? Promise me you’re going to try to get him help.”

“Meg, a few hours ago you were threatening to kill this guy,” Dean pointed out.

“Well, that was before I knew he was a sick kid who thinks I killed his sister, which honestly, I can’t blame him for.”

A heavy silence fell on the room.

“Oh, Meg,” Castiel muttered.

Meg crossed her arms and shifted in her place, uncomfortable.

Sheriff Nickerson closed her notepad very slowly.

“Okay,” she said. “I think I’ve got everything we need. I’ll call Mills and Hanscum, and tell ‘em to ask if this kid’s parents have any idea where he might be.”

She left the room without making any promises. Meg didn’t like that.

“Meg, you didn’t cause any of this,” Castiel continued. “It wasn’t your fault Marin died, it wasn’t your fault what her brother tried to do…”

“Well, it feels like it is,” Meg interrupted him. “And no amount of sugarcoating it with big words’ going to change that, so save it.”

Castiel went quiet immediately, while Dean glared at her with a soft: “Hey…”

Meg pinched the bridge of her nose.

“I’m sorry,” she muttered. “I’m sorry. This whole thing has been…”

“I know,” Castiel said. “It’s okay.”

Meg went to sit on the chair at the other side of his bed. She needed to be close to him, to make sure that he really was fine. Earlier she had peeked on his medical charts, even though she knew she wasn’t supposed to do that. She just needed to see with her own eyes that it was really over and he really was going to be just fine. And everything indicated than he was.

“You really weren’t worried about me, were you?” Castiel asked, like he had read her mind.

“Not for a second.”

“No, because she didn’t even acknowledge what was going,” Dean pointed out. “It was like Egypt in her head, because she was floating in a river of denial.”

“Well, at least I wasn’t weeping and saying I couldn’t live without Cas.”

“I didn’t weep,” Dean retorted, offended.

“Of course not,” Meg rolled her eyes. “You just shed a single man tear.”

“You know what, Masters…?”

“Kids, please,” Castiel interrupted their banter. “Remember, middle-aged Harrison Ford will punish you if you’re naughty.”

“Huh,” Meg said. “Wouldn’t that be a reward?”

The pain meds they gave Castiel must have been a little too strong, because it took him all ten seconds to get the joke and start laughing along with Dean. Of course, he didn’t laugh for long because his ribs started to hurt, and the fact he was in pain must have been hilarious for the both of them, because they just kept on laughing harder still.

“I’m glad my disgrace is amusing to you,” he commented, feigning offense.

“I’m so… sorry…” Meg giggled, although it was pretty clear that she was to crack up again at any second.

“Yeah, sorry,” Dean said. “It’s just… you know, you either laugh at this near-death experiences or make some radical life changes. One or the other.”

Castiel moved his head towards him very slowly. Suddenly, he realized he didn’t feel like laughing anymore, so maybe a radical life change was in order.

“Marry me?”

He thought Meg would start laughing again, but looking back, it was pretty obvious that wasn’t going to be the case. What happened instead was that another silence fell on the room. What happened instead was that Dean’s eyes suddenly lit up and his mouth hanged opened, like he wanted to believe what was happening, but didn’t quite dare to.

“Dude,” he said. “Don’t even joke about that.”

“What part suggested to you that I was joking?” Castiel asked, in his most serious tone.

“Oh, look, Benny’s here,” Meg stood up suddenly, pointing at the other side of the glass door. “I’m gonna go say hi to him.”

And she left the room faster than Castiel could muster his breath to call her name. Dean shook his head, like he still wasn’t sure what was going on.

“Cas, you really need to work on your timing.”

“I agree,” Castiel said. “But that doesn’t answer my question.”

Dean looked at him like he couldn’t believe Castiel was actually asking.

“What do you think?”

Castiel squeezed his boyfriend – his fiancé’s hand tight.

“Do you want to come over here and kiss me?” he asked. “I would, but it hurts when I stretch.”

Dean moved closer, put a hand behind his neck and pulled him for a kiss. An actual, lip-biting, full force kiss, like it always was. Like it always should have been.

 

* * *

 

Catching Marin’s brother wasn’t hard. Marin’s parents had a red Toyota Corolla that mysteriously appeared almost destroyed in their garage. Marin’s mother called the police when she found a handgun in the glove compartment. She was afraid her son might have done something terrible.

“He didn’t even resist,” Jody told Meg on the phone. “He was just lying on his bed in his room. I asked him if he knew why we were there. He said _‘Because I did something very bad’_. I think he was actually relieved when we only charged him with attempted murder.”

“Does he have a lawyer?” Meg asked. “Who’s going to handle his case? They should tell them to try offer him a plea bargain so he can go somewhere he can receive treatment.”

Jody didn’t say a word for a couple of seconds.

“He stalked you,” he said. “He trashed your apartment. Meg, he tried to kill your best friend…”

“Is he on suicide watch?” Meg insisted. “If he’s in a depressive mood, he might not try anything, but if he goes manic again he might emulate his sister’s actions.”

Jody clearly hadn’t thought of that.

“I’ll call the DA.”

Meg hanged up and turned around towards Benny, who was staring at her with a crooked eyebrow from her futon.

“What?”

“You’re a better person than you think you are, Meg Masters,” he said.

“Shut up,” Meg said, as she went into her bedroom and emerged with a duffle bag. “Okay, I’ll be back the day after tomorrow. I’ve got my cellphone on me, so if there’s anything you need…”

“Meg,” Benny grabbed her hand before she could take another step towards the door. “Are you sure you need to go?”

“What do you mean?”

“Cas has Dean, his mom, his sister, his brother, his agent and his fans looking out for him,” Benny pointed out. “Do you really need to be there as well?”

“Well, I don’t _need_ to,” Meg shrugged. “But I want to be there for Cas.”

It… it wasn’t weird, right? She had taken a bunch of free days she was owed, bargained and begged for other nurses to cover her shifts (eventually she would have to do triple shifts, and she wasn’t even sure how she was supposed to do that), just so she could spend her time in Fargo with Dean and Castiel until he was well enough to be brought back home. She had feared it would be different now that they were engaged and all that (she still couldn’t quite believe that had happened), but her relationship with the two continued just as it was. And it was important for her to know Cas was okay.

On the other hand, Benny was right. She didn’t know how or when, but flowers and get well cards started arriving at Castiel’s room from avid readers who were really relieved he hadn’t died so they could have more of his mystery novels.

“They’re going to be so pissed when they find out you’re not writing another one of those,” Dean had chuckled.

“Why not?”

“Well, I thought I’d write a story about elves and swords and all those things I used to like,” Castiel had clarified. “It’s actually a project I’ve been meaning to start for a while now.”

“That’s awesome!” Meg had said. “And hey, since you’re all immobilized and stuff, you’ll have no excuse to procrastinate.”

“You underestimate my capacity for procrastination,” Castiel had laughed. “But it is true, maybe I won’t feel inclined to avoid working as much.”

So Castiel was about to start a new project. He and Dean were getting married.

And suddenly, Meg was remembering why she hated staying in one place for so long.

People moved on. People she knew and loved straightened their lives, graduated from college, got engaged, had kids, and suddenly a day came when they stopped calling, they stopped having time to go on impromptu road trips with her, they stopped getting drunk with her on a weekday. And she moved on too, except that leaving everything behind and dropping off the face of the earth to try and do the same thing somewhere else wasn’t quite the same as moving on.

But this time should be different, right? She had her job, she had Benny. She could deal with Dean and Castiel leaving her out of their lives for good while remaining just where she was. Maybe they wouldn’t go completely radio silence on her.

But it wouldn’t be the same as it was now. And she wanted to make the most of every second they had left before everything changed forever.

Of course, she couldn’t explain that to Benny. Not in a way he could understand.

“Suga’, why don’t you stay here?” he insisted. “You’ve been working all day, the sun’s almost falling and it’s a long trip. We could snuggle while we watch something on Netflix and you could go to bed early, for a change. I’m sure Cas won’t mind.”

“It sounds really tempting,” Meg said, sincerely. She didn’t know what else to say from there. Luckily, she didn’t have to say anything.

“But you’re not going to do it.”

“Sorry,” she mumbled, pathetically. “I just… I can’t…”

Benny’s expression was one of deep sadness, like Meg rejection had hurt a lot more than he expected it to. Before Meg could open her mouth to apologize again, he squared his shoulders and beamed again, the way he sued to do to indicate everything was alright.

“Well, of course, you’re worried about him,” he said. “I get it.”

It sounded like the excuse that should be coming out of her mouth, and they both knew it sounded like it was too little for the pains Meg was going to spend time with Cas.

“I’m sorry,” she repeated. She had a hand on the doorknob already, because suddenly she felt like she had to run out of there before she started justifying herself even more poorly. “I’ll make it up to you.”

“Yeah,” Benny said. “I think I’ll go home now. Have a good trip.”

It sounded like he didn’t expect her to keep that promise. He also didn’t try to get closer to kiss her goodbye, and he didn’t remind her to text him or call him when she got there.

As Meg sped up in the empty road, she felt the guilt building up in her stomach. He wasn’t mad at her, because Benny was the best guy in the world, how could he get mad at her for something as natural as being worried for a friend? No, there wasn’t any rage or jealousy when he said goodbye.

There was just… disappointment. Like he had expected different from Meg.

If it had been someone else or for any other reason, Meg would have got defensively irritated about it. She would have raved on and on about how it was her life and she could whatever the hell she wanted with it, and if Benny had a problem, the door was right there. She would have denied it was her fault he felt offended, and that he had absolutely no right to have an opinion on what she did or didn’t do.

But she had already gone through that with Dean, and honestly, she was too exhausted to pretend she didn’t know what was really going on.

Benny was realizing he came second. Hell, given how confusing things had got with Dean while they were waiting outside the OR, he might even come _third_. Meg really wasn’t in the mood to analyze that too closely. What was certain was that Benny was noticing she had feelings for other people, and they weren’t going away any time soon.

And she couldn’t avoid the issue forever. Sooner or later, when there weren’t so many things going on, she would have to sit down and talk it over with him. Because it wasn’t fair to make him feel awful after how patient and how awesome he’d been with her.

She parked her car in front of the hospital and took two seconds to check herself in the mirror. She wiped the ugly black tears from her smeared eyeliner (seriously, she needed to stop buying that cheap shit), and practiced her smile before walking towards Castiel’s room like nothing was out of the ordinary.

Castiel was struggling between Dean and a nurse to get back to the bed when she arrived.

“This is extremely embarrassing,” he complained as they helped him back to the bed.

“Well, get used to it,” Dean replied, with a shrug. “You’re going to be extremely embarrassed until you can move by yourself again.”

“Sponge bath?” Meg asked, trying to hold the laughter at the image of Castiel trying to hop away from his helpers.

“Potty break,” Dean replied. Then, almost like he had just realized who said those words, he let go off Castiel’s arm and turned to her. “Hey, don’t you have work tomorrow? What are you doing here?”

“Dean!” Castiel called. He was keeping his balance, though barely, by supporting all his weight on the poor nurse, who was clearly in pain because of it.

“Sorry, babe!”

Meg laughed at them and went to help. Between the three, they managed to put Castiel and his extra pounds of cast on the bed again.

“Thank you,” he muttered as Meg handed him a glass of water (though that probably meant he would need to go to the bathroom again soon). “But you haven’t answered Dean’s question.”

“I asked Missouri to cover for me,” Meg said. “I’ll make it up to her.”

“How many extra shifts you’ll have to work?” Dean frowned. “That can’t be healthy.”

“Pot, meet kettle,” Meg rolled her eyes. Castiel giggled under his breath. “But seriously, guys, don’t worry about me. I just want to be around to help.”

“Well, I can’t deny the usefulness of having my own personal nurse,” Castiel joked. Meg was laughing when she felt the warmth of a hand resting on top of hers. Castiel was looking at her with those intense blue eyes, the way he did when he didn’t want anybody to escape from his gaze. “Thank you.”

“You’re… very welcome,” Meg said, trying to make it seem less important than it felt. She looked away and grabbed the remote. “So what are we watching tonight?”

“I think there’s a marathon of _How It’s Made_ …”

“Why?” Dean asked, rolling his eyes.

“It’s fascinating,” Castiel tried to shrug, but of course, what came out was more like a slight shudder. “I have discovered many fascinating TV shows while I’ve been constrained here…”

“As soon as we get you home, I’m not letting you anywhere near the TV again.”

Meg watched them banter without interrupting, a smirk floating in her lips. It was strange to think about the awful things that had happened since she’d found those two. It was even stranger to think about all the good they have brought into her life, and how bad she wanted to hang onto to it for as long as she could.


	29. Wishful

Spring returned lazily to their garden, but Castiel, who had taken to sit down on the backyard instead of his studio those days, found something new to look at every morning. The grass was green from all the time Dean spent watering it, and the tree they had planted when they moved there was growing strong while its branches became thicker. Castiel imagined that when they were old and so tired they could barely walk, they could always bring out chairs sit underneath its shadow to remember the good old days. It was a strange feeling. He had never paid much thought to what could happen in the future. He focused so much in the present, in the tasks he had at hand, that he never stopped and actually considered where he would be in fifty years or so.

But now he sat there with his notebook and his pen (he had rediscovered the joys of handwriting, and also, a notebook allowed for less chances at procrastinating), and when he looked up, he could see Dean through the kitchen’s window, cooking or cleaning or doing a little dance while he sang to the music in his head. And Castiel knew that in fifty years, he would like to be exactly where he was at that very moment.

That afternoon had been particularly fruitful. He had finished the second chapter of his new book and he had designed some maps for the imaginary kingdom where the story happened. When he was done, he had stopped for a couple of seconds to rub his ribs and appreciate his home once more. Ever since he had been discharged from the hospital, he made it a point to do that, to thank Dean for his homemade food, and to spend more time than it was necessary in their soft bed. Well, he did that before he had a near death experience, but now he did with full appreciation for it.

The cloudy days had become scarce, so that particular Friday, Castiel could see the orange sky and the sun setting behind the houses of their neighborhood. Dean was in the kitchen, this time talking on the phone while he walked up and down taking out plates and knives from the drawers to start making dinner. Judging by his expressions and the way he kept gesticulating, he had a good idea who was on the other end of the line.

In the end, Dean ended the call, put a pot of boiling water over the stove and took two beers out of the fridge.

“How’s that going, babe?” he asked Castiel, as he sat by his side and slipped one of the bottles towards him.

“Amazingly,” Castiel said, unaware of the way his eyes lit up as he spoke. “I have thought of the cleverest foreshadowing for the plot twist three thirds into the book…”

He shut up, but because he didn’t want to jinx it. This was too important and too wonderful for him to show it to anybody before it was ready, even if it was Dean. His boyfriend – his fiancé – however, seemed to understand, because he smiled wide at him.

“You know, it’s good to see you enjoying it again.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, back when we were in college, you always got excited when you wrote, talking about what you were doing and such,” Dean commented. “You got this look in your eye I hadn’t seen in a while… now you have it again.”

Castiel smiled as well. Dean had hit the nail on the head, because he did feel happy to be writing again.

“I guess I just remembered why I like this,” he replied. “How is Meg?”

Dean didn’t even ask how he knew it had been her on the phone.

“She’s going to see Marin’s brother tomorrow,” he said. “Apparently, he got a plea bargain and he’s going to a mental facility instead of doing jail time.”

He tapped his fingers on the table, like there was something else he wanted to say but didn’t quite know how to.

“Does that bother you?” Castiel asked in the end.

“No,” Dean said, as usual going for denial as his first reaction. “I mean, a little? I don’t… is it really okay, though? I know what you said to the DA, but…”

“Meg thinks is the right thing,” Castiel said. “She understands his situation better than us. I trust her judgment on this.”

“Yeah,” Dean sighed. “I just don’t find it that easy to forgive him as you two.”

Castiel stretched his hand over the table to squeeze Dean’s.

“Don’t forgive him, then,” he said. “But just consider you would feel terrible too if something happened to Sam. And if you had a sickness that made your grief all that much worse,” he added when Dean opened his mouth to argue. “You would put the blame wherever you could and act out too, even if it’s mistaken.”

“Meg doesn’t think it’s mistaken,” Dean pointed out. “She thinks she deserves to be blamed.”

“Well, I guess we’ll just have to support her until she realizes she’s wrong,” Castiel said. As usual, he said it like it was the simplest of solutions and anybody who thought otherwise was complicating their lives unnecessarily. Dean chuckled and took a swig of his beer.

“I guess we can do that,” he commented. “She also said she’s coming this Saturday.”

Castiel blinked at him like he wasn’t entirely sure what Dean meant.

“Our engagement party,” Dean reminded him. “You know, that thing when we tell all the people we care about we’re going to get married, no biggie.”

“Right,” Castiel smiled. He stretched his hand to grab Dean’s. He knew for Dean it was a very big “biggie”, but he wasn’t going to tease him by pointing that out. “That thing.”

 

* * *

 

The hospital where Thomas had been placed was bigger, had more rooms and more staff than Meg’s ward at Sioux Falls. There was a security guard at the door that thoroughly checked her up for sharp objects and reminded her of what she wasn’t allowed to do in the visiting area. Other than that, it was pretty much the same as Meg’s ward in the hospital. That didn’t really make her feel any more comfortable.

Thomas was sitting on a table in the visiting area, his red hair messy and unwashed. They allowed him to wear his jeans and a black shirt instead of a hospital scrub, but Meg knew he probably wasn’t allowed a belt and that his shoes wouldn’t have laces. He was staring at a lot of open notebooks, and Meg felt a stab in the gut when she realized they contained Marin’s drawings and paintings. Her first impulse was to turn around, run out and beg Benny to take her home, but she had come all the way there and she back down now.

“Thomas?” she called him. He raised his gaze and blinked a couple of times, like he wasn’t sure if Meg had really spoken or if she was there at all. “Mind if I sit?”

He half-heartedly nodded and returned his attention to the drawings. Meg knew he was about twenty years old, but he looked much older with his haggard face and the black circles under his eyes. She waited patiently until he looked up again.

“They say my disorder now has psychotic features,” he said. His words sounded slow and deliberate, like he had to think of them very carefully before he pronounced them. “That’s why I tried to kill your boyfriend.”

Meg didn’t even bother explaining Castiel wasn’t her boyfriend. That was not what she had come here to discuss.

“I’m sorry,” she said, instead. “I’m really sorry about what happened to Marin. I keep thinking about it, trying to see if there’s anything I could have done differently…”

“There isn’t,” Thomas interrupted her, sharply. But he didn’t seem angry as he said it, just… sad: “It wasn’t even the first time she tried it. She just succeeded this time.”

He went quiet for a while. His fingers tapped the edge of one of the notebooks, like he was thinking of the words he could add.

“I think about it, too,” he said. “Now I can think about it. And I think you’re not a bad person. I never saw you do something bad on purpose. And you don’t deserve what I put you through.”

It was like he had been meditating about that carefully while he was locked up in there and he was stating the conclusion he had reached a long time ago. He looked up again. His eyes were the same brown tone as Marin’s.

“I just miss her a lot,” he said.

Meg wasn’t sure what to answer. Telling him he should try to keep going because that’s what Marin would have wanted wasn’t just a cliché; it was arrogant of her to speak for the poor kid’s dead sister. Telling him everything was okay was a downright lie and that everything would be okay eventually was a promise she couldn’t make. So she tried something a little more sincere:

“I miss my brother, too.”

“Did he die?” Thomas asked, point blank.

“No,” Meg admitted. “We just haven’t talked in a very long time.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know,” she confessed. “People are stupid, I guess.”

For the first time in the entire visit, Thomas smiled.

“Yes, they are,” he chuckled, like Meg had said something hilarious but he couldn’t openly laugh at it. “They should put that on a shirt.”

Meg smiled as well. She felt strangely like Thomas had really forgiven her, just like she had forgiven him. There only thing left was to see if they could forgive themselves.

He shook his hand when she stood up to leave.

“Will you visit me again?” he asked. “My parents can’t because I destroyed their car, and I don’t think my college friends would want to.”

He stated it as if it was a simple matter of fact, but Meg felt the loneliness underneath his words. She had worked on the psych ward long enough to recognize it.

“I’ll try,” she promised. “Take care of yourself, Thomas.”

Benny was waiting for her outside in his truck.

“How was he?”

“He seems to be doing okay,” Meg replied.

She didn’t add anything else as Benny turned on the engine. The trip there had been silent, as any attempt at conversation had died with Meg looking outside the window. Benny had let her be, correctly assuming she was too nervous for what was about to happen to talk. And now, there were many things they did need to talk about, but neither of them knew where to start.

The highway was clear under the lazy spring sun. Meg allowed herself a couple of seconds to collect her thoughts.

“Dean and Cas’ engagement party’s this Saturday,” she said in the end. “You coming with me?”

It was a hopeful question, and she was sort of expecting the answer she got, but it didn’t hurt any less.

“I think I’ll pass on this one, suga’.”

He said in a whisper, without taking his eyes off the road. Like that somehow would soften the blow. It didn’t.

“Oh,” Meg said. “And why?”

She already knew the answer, but she needed to hear it out loud.

They were entering the town now. Benny turned left towards Meg’s street, without saying a word for some minutes.

“Well, it’s safe to say we both know you have some business you gotta figure out first.”

“They’re getting married, Benny,” Meg said. She said it almost like a verdict: they were getting married, and she would be excluded from a relationship she never had a place in in the first place, and she would feel terrible for it and need Benny by her side.

But she couldn’t blame him for not wanting to be second best. Benny thought the same thing.

“It don’t really matter what they do,” he said. “It ain’t gonna change what you feel, and it ain’t gonna change how I feel about it. So…”

He parked the car in front of Meg’s building. She figured that was his subtle, polite way to tell her to get out, but she still had something else to add.

“You’re a great guy,” she said. “And you’re right, you really deserve better. I just hope you know, I never meant…”

“I know you didn’t,” he interrupted her. He still wasn’t looking at her, and for the first time, Meg was completely aware this was as painful to him as it was for her. “No need to apologize.”

Meg reached for the handle, but she didn’t pull it. She didn’t want it to end that way.

“It was good while it lasted, huh?”

That managed to put a smile in Benny’s face. So maybe he didn’t hate her after all.

“It was very good,” he admitted, turning around to look at her.

“Can I call you?” Meg asked. “When I’m done figuring things out, can I call you?”

For a moment, Meg thought his beam would disappear and he would tell her no, that he didn’t resent her but it was best if they just didn’t see each other again. But apparently, Benny wasn’t done with them either.

“Sure thing, suga’,” he told her. “I ain’t gonna change my number.”

Meg leaned over and put a soft peck on the edge of his lips. Whatever happened afterwards, she was at least glad she parted friends with Benny.

 

* * *

 

The engagement party was very similar than their Christmas party, and at the same time, fundamentally different. At the very least, there weren’t any people wearing ridiculous sweaters, to Dean’s immense relief. Other than that, there were pretty much the same crowd, adding Castiel’s siblings and myriad of cousins to the mix of Dean’s friends and co-workers.

Jo, Charlie and Dorothy had hitched a ride with Jess and Sam from California and arrived on Friday, so they were the first to get to the house on Saturday morning and start decorating.

“So how’d that go?” Dean asked. He didn’t mean the road trip, because was curious, and at the same time pretty sure he didn’t want to know exactly what had gone on in that car. But he did want to find out how his brother was doing, so he pulled him aside to a corner with the excuse of sharing a beer with him. The fact that Jess was there was a good sign, but he still wanted to have some confirmation that it’d all worked out.

“Good, good,” Sam said. “We talked things out. We’re good now.”

He looked over at the table where the three girlfriends were teaching Jess and Castiel to make origami cranes to hang around the house (Charlie’s idea). It was eerie how good they were all getting along. Even Dorothy had a smile on her face as she tied the cranes with fishing line.

“I’m glad,” Dean said, and took a swig of his beer. It took him a second or two to realize Sam was staring at the silver ring on his finger with something akin to envy. He waited in silence until Sam sighed.

“You know, I always thought I’d be the first to marry,” he commented.

“You can still be the first,” Dean shrugged. “We don’t even have a date, so if you grab Jess right now and go to Las Vegas…”

“Very funny.”

“You can have a dude dressed up like Elvis marry you!” Dean continued. “How cool would that be?”

Sam dismissed him with a gesture of his hand, but he still chuckled.

“I’m happy for you,” he concluded. Dean pat him on the shoulder to show he appreciated he was glad for him, and lifted his bottle once more. “How’s Meg taking it?”

Dean almost choked on his beer.

“She’s… she’s taking if fine,” he said, and as the words left his mouth, he knew right away his brother wouldn’t believe him. “No, she’s… why would she take it any other way than just fine?” Dean continued. “She’s our friend, of course she’s happy. She said she was coming, so she’s totally on our side with this.”

Out loud it sounded even more like bullshit. Sam, of course, was not afraid to call him out on it.

“You’re afraid she’s going to leave, aren’t you?”

“She’s not bringing her boyfriend with her,” Dean said, happy that someone voiced his fears for him. “That can’t be a good sign, right? ‘Cause if she broke up with him, maybe she’ll…”

“Break up with you two as well?” Sam suggested. Those weren’t the words Dean would have chosen, but they did capture the spirit of what he was thinking, so he nodded. Sam put down his beer, his ‘ _I’m being serious right now_ ’ face on. “Look, I’m not going to pretend I get it,” he said. “If you have an agreement like them,” he said, making a gesture at Jo, Charlie and Dorothy, “or whatever goes on between you three, but I’m pretty sure of one thing: Meg would stay if you asked her to.”

“Yeah?” Dean asked, nervously, not sure if he should believe that or not. “How can you know?”

Sam shrugged, and Dean remembered that thing Castiel said about those two being kindred spirits.

“Because… maybe she just needs a reason to stay,” he said, simply.

“What are you two lazy asses whispering about?” Dorothy shouted at them from the table.

“Yeah, come here and help, or share the beer with everybody,” Jo said. She had a folded paper in her hand that didn’t resemble a crane at all and was looking at it with disappointment. “There’s no way I can do this sober.”

“Oh, just give them to me, honey,” Charlie said, snatching the paper from her hands and unfolding it to start again. “At least you’re pretty.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Jo asked, offended.

Dean laughed with everybody and went to get more beer from the fridge. He sat by Castiel, who proudly showed him the crane he had just finished.

“Charlie says that if you complete a thousand of this you can make a wish and it will come true,” he told him. He had that happy glimmer in his eye as he said, like he wholeheartedly believed the cranes would grant him his wish. Dean sometimes couldn’t bear how cute he looked.

“Well, then,” he said, pulling a paper closer to him. “We better get started… uh, how are you supposed to do this?”

He didn’t appreciate all his friends laughing in his face, but at least he knew exactly what wish he would make.


	30. Making It Up As We Go

The house looked illuminated and crowded from the outside. The shadows of the guests danced right beyond the curtain, with glasses and dishes in their hands. It was easy to imagine them laughing and chatting amiable, the entire room crowded and warm.

Meg sat on her car right outside, the present she had bought for them resting menacingly on the dashboard. She was resisting the temptation to turn on the engine and drive. Not even back to her apartment, just… drive. The next town over or the next had hospitals too, she could get work at any of them. She could send her landlord a check and a letter requesting he packed up all her things and sent them to her. She didn’t have to walk in there and stare at all those smiling faces, make small chat with a group of people she thought she could belong to.

She didn’t have to face the fact Castiel and Dean were better off without her.

Because that had always been the bottom line of it all, hadn’t it? They had tolerated there, they had accepted her presence, but she always knew there was an expiration date to it all. If Thomas hadn’t tried to kill Castiel, it might have lasted a little longer.

It was really weird she was thinking about that, because for the last twenty minutes, she had been doing the exact same thing he’d done once: sitting on her car outside looking in. Eventually she would have to either grow a pair and get inside or go home and call to tell them she was sick or with cramps. She wondered if they’d be offended that she didn’t go. Perhaps it was the best thing to do. Eventually she would have to get away from them, so she might as well start gently so by the time they set a date for the wedding…

The curtains were drawn and Dean appeared against the window glass. Meg had the impulse to dodge, but of course, he had already seen her and waved at her.

Well, there was no escaping it now. Meg waved back and grabbed the present. She hadn’t even finished crossing the garden when the front door opened, spilling the golden light of the inside over her. Meg forced a smile and strode in, only to be received by a tight hug.

“Hey, there,” Dean greeted her before stepping back and staring at her face like he was trying to detect something on it. “How are you doing?”

Meg panicked for a second that he saw right through her, then she remembered she had broken up with Benny less than three days before.

“I’m fine,” she said, and it was at least partially true. “Yeah, it wasn’t like… I’m fine,” she concluded. She couldn’t say much more without revealing a lot of things she had promised herself she would keep quiet. “It was all very friendly,” Meg concluded with a shrug.

Dean stared at her with obvious doubt, but before he could ask anything else, Meg lifted the gift she had brought and practically shoved it against his chest.

“It’s… well, I don’t think I ever congratulated you two,” she said, forcing a smile while Dean looked at the gift like he wasn’t entirely sure what that was supposed to be. “So there. It’s a… little something.”

“Uh… thanks,” Dean said, disconcerted. “That’s really thoughtful of you.”

Castiel appeared through the back door and went straight for them.

“You’re late,” he scolded Meg as he pulled her in for a hug. “I was looking forwards to talk to you.”

“I’m fashionably late,” Meg replied, rolling her eyes.

“And she comes bearing gifts,” Dean added, handing the box to Castiel. “I say we can forgive her.”

“Oh, what is it?”

“I…” Meg started to say that she would prefer it if they saw it in private, but Castiel had already torn the wrapping paper to reveal a small jewel box. They both seemed a bit surprised as they opened it to find two thick silver rings, with small golden strips alongside them.

“Dude,” Dean closed his eyes for a second. “I knew we were forgetting something.”

“Well, of course you were,” Meg crossed her arms over her chest and hoping her sarcastic tone would make up for the fact her face was burning red. “Dean is too macho to be caught dead walking in a jewelry store and Cas is too oblivious to remember you’re supposed to give one of those to someone when you ask them to marry you. So there.”

“Oh, Meg,” Castiel picked one up to look at it better. Meg knew he was discovering the “D + C” engraved on the inside and thought about joking about how difficult it was to resist the urge to ask the jeweler to write “Destiel” or something like that. But then Castiel looked at her with his deep blue eyes, deeply touched, and Meg’s entire cynic exterior was in grave danger of melting. “We can’t…”

“Yes, you can,” she said, slightly annoyed. “You can, because I bought them for you, and I want you to have them, so don’t even start with the ‘we can’t accept this’ shit.”

Castiel chuckled and put a hand on her shoulder.

“I was going to say we can’t thank you enough,” he said. “But if you want me to try and politely turn them down…”

“Nope, too late, you already grabbed them. They’re yours now,” Meg said, taking out a little paper from her back pocket and forcing it on Dean’s hand. “If they don’t fit, you can have them resized here.”

“Got you,” Dean said. He was apparently amused with Meg and Casitel’s exchange. “Come on, there’s beer in the back.”

“See? That’s an appropriate way to thank me.”

Meg had a flashback to last year’s Fourth of July, because there were burgers by the barbecue ready to be thrown as soon as Dean decided to pay attention to them. Also, Castiel’s entire family was there: Gabriel was hitting on Pamela, who seemed to be actually hitting back, if her body language was anything to go by. Anna and Hael were happily chatting with Rachel about her health and poor Raphael had been ambushed by Naomi. By the looks he kept throwing in his wife’s direction, he was in dire need of someone to rescue him from whatever topic it was that they were talking about.

“Oh, yes, it’d be a joy to us all when you finally do it,” Naomi was telling Raphael, who kept pulling from his shirt collar.

“Well, you know, we’re trying, but these things might take time…”

Both of Dean’s bosses, Bobby and Ellen, were there as well, each of them with a beer in hand. Bobby was having a loud argument about motors with Dorothy (for what Meg could understand when she passed by them to snatch a beer), while Charlie sat on Jo’s lap and chatted with Ellen, pointing at the paper cranes that littered the table.

“… it’s very relaxing, and it makes for a cheap and pretty party decoration…”

“Kid, I have been around the block a couple of times, and I can tell with certainty you cannot do that jump with so little horse power!”

“You can if you have a ramp that’s high enough!”

“Meg, over here!”

Just when Meg was thinking she would have to go hide inside or tell the boys it was rude of them to leave their guests alone like that (though the only one who seemed awkward was her), she spotted Sam waving his arm at her from the other end of the yard. Relieved, she strolled towards him and the blonde girl he was holding by the waist. Predictably, he introduced her as Jess.

“Well, nice to meet you finally,” Meg said, shaking her hand. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“Oh, probably not very good things, if you heard them over Thanksgiving,” Jess said, with a cringed that was supposed to be self-deprecating but came off as fearful of what Meg would think of her.

“No, just how wonderful you were and how Sam was an idiot for almost losing you,” Meg replied, with a shrug. “He was moping all weekend.”

“I did not… I wasn’t moping,” Sam protested weakly.

“The only thing he didn’t do was stand on the roof and howl at the moon in agonizing pain,” Meg continued, ignoring him. “But that was because there was too much snow to climb the roof.”

That got Jess to laugh and to stand a little closer to Sam. Meg thought she saw a look of gratitude in his eyes. She was really exceeding her number of good deeds that year.

“And how are you?”

“I’m great,” Meg lied. “Just wished people would stop asking that, though.”

She didn’t realize how bitter that had sounded until she saw the Jess and Sam’s faces. Jess immediately offered herself to bring more beer, because apparently she understood this was a thing Meg wouldn’t talk about in front of her.

“No, really, how are you?” Sam insisted as soon as they were (relatively) alone. “I heard you broke up with your boyfriend…”

“I just took my own advice,” Meg shrugged. “About not doing something just for the sake of doing it. Like getting married. Or having a relationship.”

Except that yes, she had started flirting with Benny because he was the first decent looking guy that crossed her path when she was in a bad place. But it had grown to be so much more than that. And now she had lost him because she couldn’t let go of the past, and she had also lost Castiel and Dean…

She took a swig of her beer and pretended her thoughts hadn’t gone straight to that. Of course, that wasn’t enough to fool Sam, because he stepped closer and put a hand on her shoulder.

“Hey, if you need to talk…”

“I usually just drink these things away,” Meg said, showing him the bottle. Sam didn’t laugh.

“How’s that working out for you?”

“Not as great as I expected it,” she admitted. “But maybe it’s because I haven’t drunk enough yet.”

She took another swig to emphasize her words. Sam opened his mouth like he wanted to add something else, but at that very moment Jess returned and Dean and Castiel walked out, holding hands.

“Hello, hi,” Dean said, after loudly clearing his throat. “Well, I don’t wanna give a speech ‘cause frankly, I’m not good at them. You guys know that,” he added awkwardly as his public giggled. “But I just wanted to thank you all for being here, and for sharing this moment with us. And… Cas, this is where you interrupt me.”

This time the laughter was much more audible. Even Castiel was chuckling.

“Yes, well, there’s not much more to say,” Castiel continued. “We’re happy and we’re thankful. Honestly I never understood the appeal of marriage. I simply assumed we were going to be together the rest of our lives without the need of any ceremony where we stood around and said so.”

There were more chuckles at Cas’ bluntness, but Meg could tell for sure he was being completely sincere. Dean could too, because he laughed and looked away while blushing furiously.

“But I have come to learn the value of certain gestures,” Castiel continued. “And this is a gesture we wanted to share with all of you.”

He raised their intertwined hands, so everybody could see the glimmer of the rings Meg had got them. Somebody (Meg was pretty sure it was Charlie) let out a squeal and even though everybody already knew why they were there, there was a round of applause.

There was a flutter in Meg’s chest as she saw them (her friends, her boys) standing there, beaming at each other, how their eyes were shining when they looked at each other like they never wanted to see anything else again.

And she realized she had been so busy wallowing in her own misery and what their engagement meant _to her_ that she hadn’t even stopped to consider what it meant to them.

She was finding out, amazingly, that if she quitted being sorry for herself, she was genuinely glad they had each other. She was glad Castiel had found someone to share his life with. She was glad it was Dean.

“A toast!” she proposed, raising her bottle. “For the happy couple!”

“For the happy couple!” Sam echoed her.

Everyone in the backyard did the same, followed by more applause. Dean made a “Oh, stop!” gesture with his wrist that had everyone rolling with laughter for two solid minutes right before they all started getting up to hug them or congratulate them again up close.

Meg stayed right where she was, thinking if she had anything else to say, she would say it later. She was a bit surprised when Castiel broke away from the crowd and walked straight towards her.

“What are you…?”

Castiel’s reply was to pull her close for a hug, his hands greedily on her back as he squeezed her against him. His lips grazed her hair for a second before he whispered:

“Thank you.”

Meg wasn’t entirely sure to answer to that, because she didn’t understand it. In her opinion, she had brought Castiel more grievances than it was worth it. But he had also made her feel like she belonged somewhere in a way she hadn’t for a very long time, so she squeezed him right back and muttered:

“Thank you, too.”

A second later, they were being pulled apart by people who wanted to talk to Castiel, while Dean shouted at Sam that he needed help with the barbecue, but Sam didn’t know where he kept most of the stuff, so Meg had to run to the kitchen to help them. But as she drank, and joked, and ate Dean’s burgers, she kept catching Castiel’s eye.

And she knew, that for all the misunderstandings and unsaid things, they both knew what they’d meant.

 

* * *

 

Dean was getting the hang of these reunions-sort-of-informal-dinner-party things. For example, he knew the moment they were out of food or drink or both, people would start discreetly saying goodbye, thanking him for the wonderful evening, promising to return the invitation and leaving without even offering to so much pick their glasses up from the coasters (which most of them didn’t use anyway) and take it to the kitchen. He sort of missed Benny and his relentless kindness when he looked at the dishes piling up in the sink and the empty bottles lining up in the counter.

But it had been a special occasion. He was happy, and maybe a little bit drunk, so he made a choice that in normal occasion wouldn’t even cross his mind: he decided he would go to bed and clean everything in the morning.

Okay, maybe he’d classify the bottles for recycling, but the rest he would definitely do after a good night of sleep.

Of course, he would come to see that it was easier said than done, because when he walked out, he found Castiel on the couch, with Meg by his side and the two of them laughing over a joke he missed.

“Hey,” Dean said, going up to them automatically. “You’re still here.”

“Yeah, heard there was a good party in this place,” Meg replied, and Castiel giggled hiding his mouth behind his hand. Obviously, Dean wasn’t the only one who had more beers than strictly necessary that night.

“Everyone else already left,” he pointed out as he signaled Cas to scoot and make place for him.

“Really?” Meg crooked an eyebrow. “Oh, my bad. I guess I’ll do just that now.”

“Meg, wait,” Castiel said, even though Meg haven’t even tried standing up yet. “You can stay in your room.”

Dean wondered at what point had the guest’s room become simply “Meg’s room”, but there was no point denying it now. He was going to stand up and look for sheets for her bed immediately, but Meg shook her head.

“That’s nice,” she said. “But I haven’t drunk that much. I can drive home.”

“But if you’re pulled over…”

“I’ll be fine, boys,” she interrupted Castiel. “You don’t have to worry about me.”

It sounded like bullshit, and when Dean looked at Meg, he realized it was bullshit. Meg was more than just a little tipsy as she put on her boots and staggered towards the door, but there was a lot more to it that she wasn’t saying. Her shoulders were slumped. Her steps were long and fast, almost as if she wanted to run away from whatever it was that bothered her. Dean had seen walk into his bar in that manner enough times to know the Meg that was leaving their house tonight was exhausted, emotionally drained and probably sadder than she would let anybody know.

And right as she reached for the doorknob, he had the sudden feeling that if he let her cross that door, they were never going to see her again. Not like she was right now, at least. If she left, something delicate and secret and theirs would be lost forever.

And he didn’t want that.

“Meg,” he called her, standing up to go after her. Meg turned around and Dean halted, not wanting to get too close to make her uncomfortable. But he still said what he needed to say: “Stay. Please.”

Meg smirked, the way she did when she wanted to show that everything was just peachy.

“Is this like that time when there was a murderous stalker right outside?” she asked. “Is there something I need to know, Dean Winchester?”

Dean shook his head and took another step towards her.

“No,” he said. “I just really want you to stay.”

Meg blinked at him, frankly disconcerted this time.

“Why?”

Dean wasn’t good with words, not the way Castiel was, anyway, and alcohol made it much worse. But if he’d had the words, maybe he could have told Meg he just didn’t want her to run away. That he thought they were both in love with Castiel from the beginning, in their own way, and the problems between them had been because they were also falling in love with each other a bit. That it had been hard enough for him to open up to Cas, but all the jealousy and insecurity and all around stupidity were far behind them now, and he was ready to welcome her too. And Castiel would be brokenhearted if she left.

And he would be, too.

He knew words were going to fail him, so he simply took another step and put a hand under Meg’s chin. She didn’t move. She looked curious, almost as if she was wondering how far would Dean dare to go before his common sense caught it with him.

But of course he wasn’t going to stop. Because this made all the sense in the world.

He leaned forwards, gently pulling Meg’s face up. He gave her every chance to push him or tell him to stop before his lips met with hers, and even then he was hesitant, slow, almost like he was asking a question. Meg’s breathe graze his face as she let out a sigh so deep it seemed like she had been holding onto it forever.

When Dean broke away and opened his eyes, he saw Castiel standing right beside them. He smiled at Dean for a second, before he placed his hand on Meg’s cheek and turned her face towards him.

Castiel kissed her with a lot more confidence, like he knew exactly what he was doing, like he knew how she would react. He wrapped an arm around her waist at the same time Meg completely spun towards him to put a hand on the back of his neck, like she wasn’t willing to let go off him ever. Dean looked at them for a moment, imagining if that was what it was like when they were clumsy teenagers and how many things had changed since. Then he hugged Meg from behind, his hands just a little above Castiel’s and sank his nose on her hair for a second before moving his mouth to the side of her neck.

Meg broke away with another sigh, this time a little louder and sharper.

“Okay,” she muttered, and Dean stopped moving at once. He couldn’t see her expression, because she was facing Cas, but her tone was one of skepticism. “Boys, if this is your way to propose a pity threesome because I’m sad and pathetic and just broke up with Benny…”

“That’s not what it is,” Castiel said at the same time Dean spoke:

“Really?”

Meg perked up and looked at Dean over her shoulder before turning to Castiel again. It was like she was trying to make sure they were in no way joking around.

“So… what is this, exactly?”

“Something that’s been brewing for a long time, I think,” Castiel said, with a grin. “We might need to discuss it further in the morning, as I reckon we’re not entirely sober right now. But I doubt the feeling that motivates this will fade away as quickly.”

Dean groaned and Meg shook her head.

“Why do you have to use so many words?” she complained, leaning her forehead against Cas’ chest.

“Just be glad he’s not reciting poetry,” Dean commented. “Look, if you don’t want to…”

“No,” Meg cut him off. “I just… I’m wondering about the logistics of it all. Oh, listen to me, I sound like Cas.” She raised her head again. “How is this going to work?”

“I’m not entirely sure,” Castiel admitted. “We might need to make it up as we go.”

“I have a friend who can give us some tips,” Dean suggested.

It was a relief to hear the rumble of Meg’s laughter between his arms.

He buried his face in the crook of her neck again just as Castiel pulled them both closer. For a heartbeat or two, they just stood there, immobile and quiet, lost in that tight embrace.

“So you’ll stay?”

Castiel smiled like he already knew the answer, but Dean needed to hear it anyway.

“Yes,” Meg whispered. “I think I’ll stay right here.”


	31. Epilogue

The Roadhouse was pretty empty for a Friday night, so Dean managed to convince Ellen to let him go home early. Not because it was a special day or anything, but because he just felt he needed to be home early that night, and well, it was complicated, could Ellen please just let him leave?

Ellen glanced at him like she thought he had lost his mind a little bit, but in the end she agreed.

“What’s wrong?”

“Hopefully, nothing,” Dean answered, sincerely. “But I just really feel I should be home tonight, you know?”

Ellen still didn’t understand, but she huffed, pretty sure Dean wouldn’t stop insisting.

“Alright, fine,” she told him. “But you’re working extra hours on Saturday.”

“You’re the best, Ellen.”

“Get out of my sight.”

Dean did exactly that. He knew being nervous about the whole thing was stupid; it was even be stupid to go home and expect Meg to come back to it. She still had her apartment after all.

“Guys, you know I love you,” she had told them several mornings before, while holding a cup of coffee between her hands. She was wearing one of Castiel’s boxers and one of Dean’s shirts, and as Castiel had commented later, she looked amazingly cute. “I love being here, but now and then I need my own space. And a bed where I can stretch without kicking anyone.”

Dean and Castiel had agreed it was only fair, and they completely understood why she wouldn’t take the guest’s room instead. After all, this was new territory, and they were still figuring out what was comfortable for everybody. For example, Meg didn’t mind if they had sex without her, but Dean had admitted it would make him feel bad to find out Meg and Cas had gone at it without him there. At least for now. Maybe he would be okay in the future, as he grew more used to it. Castiel, with his usual bluntness, said he was fine with oral and handjobs, but he would rather they wait until he was there for the main event. They all agreed things like kisses, hugs and hand-holding were unrestricted.

But honestly, in Dean’s mind (and it was really weird to admit it), the physical part of it was the least of their complications. Jo was completely right: it did involve a whole lot of talking.

Meg had already said she needed time alone now and then, but how could Dean tell her when he wanted to spend time with Castiel without hurting her feelings or make her feel excluded again? What if Meg and Cas wanted to take a trip down memory lane that didn’t include Dean? Did Castiel felt bad when Meg went to Dean’s bar and they left together and went to bed together without waiting for Cas because he was writing? (The answer was no, of course, because Castiel was awesome, but Dean still had felt like he should ask).

And yeah, in their little word where it was just the three of them things could get resolved by just talking, but explaining it to everybody else had been a pain in the ass. After ages of people bothering them to get engage, now they wouldn’t quit asking when the wedding would be. Somehow, Dean didn’t think the honest answer (“We’re postponing it because we’ve just opened up our relationship to someone else and we’re learning what it takes to do that”) was going to satisfy everybody. Hell, Castiel, with all his brutal honesty, had said it was better not to mention their “agreement” to Naomi.

And what about the wedding, huh? Dean and Castiel were the only ones who wore rings, but did Meg want one too? Would they have to add an “M” to the engraving inside? Okay, maybe not a ring, but would she want a physical token of her belonging to that relationship as much as they did?

“Oh, my God, Dean, it’s been two months,” Meg complained when he asked her. “I don’t know, okay? I’ll let you know when I do.”

Dean had learnt rather quickly he would get nothing from pressuring her.

And then there was the reason he was coming home early tonight. He knew it was rather silly to be anxious about it, because whatever had happened, Meg would tell them about it, so why even bother?

Because he was worried, he admitted to himself as he parked the Impala inside the garage. Hell, that deadly worry sitting in his chest had to be the most clear signal that his feelings for Meg were completely authentic, and not just him accepting her for the sake of Castiel (as Meg had feared in the beginning).

Meg’s Beetle was right outside, but that didn’t mean anything. It was pretty late (two in the morning, according to Dean’s cellphone), so he couldn’t know if that was a good or a bad sign.

The clattering of the keyboard was coming from Castiel’s studio. He was wide awake, with notebooks and papers spread through his desk, but he looked up as soon as Dean’s head popped through the door.

“Hey,” Dean greeted him.

“Hey,” Castiel replied. He closed his laptop without even saving the file, a sign that he was writing just to distract himself from something. And sure enough, his following words confirm it: “She arrived half an hour ago.”

“How’d it go?”

“I don’t know,” Castiel said. “I thought I’d give her time to change before I asked. She’s upstairs now.”

“Okay,” Dean nodded. “You finish with that. I’ll go check up on her.”

Meg hadn’t really bothered to change. More like she had unzipped her dress and discarded it on the floor along with her bra, knowing full well Dean’s mania would compel him to pick them up. For a second he considered just leaving it there and watching her complain about the creases in the morning, but in the end he just couldn’t. He put it on a hanger before he turned to the bed.

Meg was laying in the middle of the mattress, with her face buried in the pillows. She had turned off all the lights, except for the night lamp on Dean’s side. Her naked back raised and fell rhythmically under the dim golden light, so perhaps she was asleep, but somehow Dean doubted it. He undressed to his boxers and got under the covers just as Castiel entered the room and took off his clothes as well. Dean pushed Meg a little, and she automatically lifted her head to move from the pillow to his bicep.

“Hi,” she muttered groggily.

“Hello,” Dean replied. “So?”

“So what?” she replied, moving closer to him to give Castiel space to slide at her side as well. He put an arm around her waist and left a kiss on her shoulder. Meg groaned loudly. “Boys, we’ve been over this. Personal space?”

“And we’ve told you, if you’re going to be part of this relationship, you’re going to be part of the nightly cuddle,” Dean replied.

“Those are the rules,” Castiel added.

“That would be a lot cuter if it didn’t mean I get to wake up covered in sweat and with both your morning woods poking me.”

Castiel started laughing uncontrollably, and it must have been contagious, because in two seconds Dean was coming down with a fit of giggles as well.

“Right, it’s funny for you,” Meg said, feigning indignation. “Boys and their cocks, I really don’t get it…”

That only got Dean to laugh even harder, but Castiel took a couple of deep breaths and decided to take advantage of the situation.

“Fine, we will consider giving you more space,” he promised. “But only if you tell us how did your date go.”

Meg groaned again, and for a second, Dean was sure she was going to say she would rather take the morning woods, but she gave in:

“It was okay.”

“That’s it?” Dean asked, slightly disappointed. “Okay?”

“Yes, Dean, okay,” Meg replied, and Dean was certain she turned around only to roll her eyes at him. “That’s what you say when something wasn’t particularly awful or particularly good. It was okay.”

There was more to it than she was letting on, so they didn’t say a word and just waited for her to continue.

“We had a good dinner, we laughed, we talked and I explained it to him,” Meg added, with a huff. “He was a bit confused, but he said he was happy for me. But he needed time to process it, so we agreed that he would call me when he was ready to give me an answer. That was it.”

That was a little underwhelming, but Dean couldn’t say he wasn’t relieved. For some unexplainable reason, he had imagined it would end up being a lot worse than that.

“And do you think he’ll call?” Castiel asked.

“Well, it’s Benny we’re talking about,” she replied. “At the very least he’ll call me to let me know he definitely doesn’t want in on it and wish me a good life.”

“Huh,” Dean muttered. “And if he does want in on it, would he just be dating you or…?”

Both Meg and Castiel raised their heads a little to give him a confused look.

“I’m just thinking that if we’re going to include Benny, we’re going to need a bigger bed,” he clarified. He was only half-joking.

“We already need a bigger bed,” Meg complained and wiggled between them. “Get off of me, you excessively hot assholes!”

“Why, thank you, Meg,” Castiel said. “You’re very attractive yourself.”

Meg stopped for a second, too surprised by that statement, and then she burst into laughter. Finally. Dean teased her a little more but he rolled away a little (not enough for her to stop using his arm as a pillow) and turned off the light.


End file.
